Transferring data to external device

Hi I am transferring files from my imac to external hard drive by usb to usb. It takes ages. I have the thunderbolt and firewire inputs on the back of my imac, sorry if this is a daft question but if I get a one of these leads to usb will it transfer faster. Or is that just not going to happen?

For example transferring a 1gb bit of data to my hard drive can take about 15 mins. Is that not slow?

Many thanks for ay advice and or pointers.

Sorry your limited by the design of USB data speed. Firewire is faster than USB 1.1 and 2 but slow compared with USB 3. While Ethernet data speed 10 100 1000mb.