  This paper presents a comprehensive examination of the X-ray continuum
variability of the bright Seyfert 1 galaxy MCG-6-30-15. The source clearly
shows the strong, linear correlation between rms variability amplitude and flux
first seen in Galactic X-ray binaries. The high frequency power spectral
density (PSD) of MCG-6-30-15 is examined in detail using a Monte Carlo fitting
procedure and is found to be well represented by a steep power-law at high
frequencies (with a power-law index alpha ~ 2.5), breaking to a flatter slope
(alpha ~ 1) below f_br ~ 0.6 - 2.0 x 10^-4 Hz, consistent with the previous
results of Uttley, McHardy & Papadakis. The slope of the power spectrum above
the break is energy dependent, with the higher energies showing a flatter PSD.
At low frequencies the variations between different energy bands are highly
coherent while at high frequencies the coherence is significantly reduced. Time
lags are detected between energy bands, with the soft variations leading the
hard. The magnitude of the lag is small (<200 s for the frequencies observed)
and is most likely frequency dependent. These properties are remarkably similar
to the temporal properties of the Galactic black hole candidate Cygnus X-1. The
characteristic timescales in these two types of source differ by ~10^5;
assuming that these timescales scale linearly with black hole mass then
suggests a black hole mass ~10^6 M_sun for MCG-6-30-15. We speculate that the
timing properties of MCG-6-30-15 may be analogous to those of Cyg X-1 in its
high/soft state and discuss a simple phenomenological model, originally
developed to explain the timing properties of Cyg X-1, that can explain many of
the observed properties of MCG-6-30-15.
