Working from internal vs. external drives

To expand on the other replies:

 

When optimizing After Effects performance, an external drive can perform just as well as an internal drive, provided it offers sufficient storage capacity and high bandwidth.

A solid-state drive (SSD) can be expected to deliver significantly faster seek times, as well as higher read and write speeds, compared to a traditional hard disk drive (HDD).

For traditional HDDs, specifications such as rotational speed (e.g., 5,400 RPM vs. 7,200 RPM) are important performance factors. However, in most cases, it is safe to assume that an SSD will outperform an HDD in both speed and responsiveness.

How storage media is configured and allocated—and the type of storage used for the operating system, applications, disk cache, project files, and source footage—is only part of the equation. It’s equally important to consider available RAM, CPU performance, and GPU support, ensuring the entire workstation is properly balanced and optimized for the settings and workloads you’re working with.

Since you’ll be moving between different preconfigured workstations, focus on efficiently transferring your projects from one system to another. A portable Thunderbolt or USB-C SSD is well suited for this workflow.  Or use a high-speed USB flash drive with fast read/write performance, rather than a slower, entry-level drive that can bottleneck playback.

Maintain a clear, consistent folder structure on the external drive—separating project files, source footage, and renders for each project—and work directly from it. Consider whether or not the drive should be formatted for cross-platform compatibility so any workstation you connect to can both read and write to it.  Also, consider purchasing two matching mobile drives of the same make and model—one to use as your primary storage, and the other as a cloned backup, with each drive clearly labeled.

It’s also good practice to avoid special characters in file and folder names to prevent potential compatibility issues.

To help avoid unexpected issues, keep the following in mind:

•  Use the same version of After Effects on every computer. Avoid trying to open a project in an older version after it’s been saved in a newer one.

• Make sure all fonts used in your project are available on each machine. Adobe Fonts will sync automatically when you’re signed into your Creative Cloud account.

• Use the same plugins across all systems, and ensure the versions match.

• If you won’t be returning to the same workstation—or someone else may use it—be sure to log out of your Creative Cloud account.

• Keep a record of your preferred setup (Preferences, Output Module templates, Render Settings templates, and keyboard shortcuts) or look into transferring these between machines for faster setup.  If someone else uses the computer on a regular basis, be mindful of maintaining their preferred settings.

Thanks for reaching out, media kat.

I'd use an internal drive whenever possible. Internal drives generally have lower latency compared to external drives.

Hope it helps. Feel free to reach out if there are any other questions.

Thanks,

Nishu

SSD drive is fast enough to work on HD/4k footages it reads/writes around 500MB/s

Nvme SSD is faster read write 1GB to 6GB/s depending on USB3 or thunderbolt 3,4,5 connection

external HDD is cheaper and more space but you should stick to backup and archiving files and not directly work. also you can use external SSD for cache.