Using USB for both (rather than esata for ext3 and USB for ntfs) I get slightly closer figures - 27.8MB/s (for ext4) vs 8.5 MB/s (for ntfs).Perhaps not too surprising, given that ntfs is a Windows, rather than a Unix, file system, and that it is running through fuse.The read rates were closer - 28.0MB/s vs 24.4MB/s