speed of downloads from memory card, faster to external hard drive? or to computer?

[Sossity]

which is faster & more efficient? to download photo & or video content from a memory card directly to an external hard drive? or to the computers main drive & then move to the external hard drive?

I am after faster transfer/download speeds with less hang ups

 

[simsaladimbamba]

It doesn't really matter, but if the photos end up on the external HDD anyway, why not do that in the first place.
The transfer speed is limited to the maximum read speed of the memory card anyway, and if you don't use a high end CF or SD card, you will probably only get around 10 to 25 MB/s anyway, and internal and external HDD (even if connected via USB) are faster.