Well, I got around 250kB/s over USB, and well over 500kB/s over Ethernet.

In general use, or using emplode/emptool? If you mean generally, then 250K/s sounds a bit slow for USB; if you mean using emplode/emptool, then 500K/s sounds unusually fast for Ethernet...

I was talking about emplode (don´t has any experience with emptool). And I wondered why the rate was that high myself. Maybe my switch is involved in getting it a bit faster (full duplex as opposed to half duplex)? Maybe my pretty fast ethernet card (don´t know the exact brand, but using a 100Mbit connection to my linux server, I get up to 8MByte/s via ftp) is a factor, maybe both. I simply don´t know why, but the rate is that high.
Nevvertheless, restoring all my music (5GB MP3 currently, quickly growing) to the empeg would still be an upload of 5,000,000Byte/(500,000Byte/sec)=10,000sec or approximately 2hours 50minutes (3600 Seconds/hour).
Enough time to drive donwtown, go to a good restaurant, have a long and good meal, goto to a cocktail bar, have a drink or two and go back home using a cab/taxi ;-)

cu,
sven