While CPU and RAM often steal the spotlight, storage speed is the unsung hero of After Effects performance. The software requires a minimum of 5GB of available hard-disk space for installation, but the real requirement lies in the speed of the disk cache. A Solid State Drive (SSD) is highly recommended for the primary drive (where the OS and application reside). Furthermore, separating the disk cache to a secondary SSD can drastically improve preview speeds, preventing the dreaded "beach ball" or "hourglass" of death.
However, "minimum" is a deceptive term in the world of video editing. Adobe officially listed 16GB of RAM as the recommended standard, with 32GB or more preferred. This recommendation stems from the way After Effects functions. When a user previews a composition, the software caches frames into RAM. If the RAM is full, the software must write to the disk cache, which is significantly slower. For motion designers working in 4K or utilizing heavy effects like the 3D camera tracker, 16GB often serves as a bottleneck. Therefore, while the system might run on 8GB (the absolute minimum), a practical workflow in 2019 virtually demands 32GB or 64GB to maintain fluidity. after effects 2019 system requirements
Note: Many legacy effects remain CPU-only. While CPU and RAM often steal the spotlight,