Question Portable SSD make a huge difference over a portable normal hard drive ?

[pcslookout]

Lets say if I am limited to USB 2 speeds at times mostly?

Other times USB 3.

 

[aigomorla]

USB2... no... both will be cap'd at the 480Mb/s of USB2.
USB3, possibly depending on what your copying and reading.
The SSD is most likely to cap your USB3 unless were talking thunderbolt or USB3.1 which then you would need a nVME USB drive.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Depends on what you're copying. For large(r) files USB2 will be the bottleneck. For large numbers of smaller files, you'll see a definite improvement since any portable SSD should be able to saturate the USB2 link. Which means you'll be copying at 35-40MB/s. Unlike a harddrive, which will do at most 1-2MB/s in those conditions.