What is "volume +"

I was logging and transferring from my external hard drive and got the message "The volume + is about to run out of disk space..." What is "volume +" ? I have checked the space on my hard drive where the project is stored and I have 100s of gigs left. Thanks.

You apparently have a volume (probably a partition) named "+" (strange name, btw, but whatever) and it's about to run out of space.

If that doesn't make sense to you, from the Finder go to the Go menu, select Go to Folder, and type in /Volumes/ and press return. You should see aliases of all mounted volumes. CAUTION: DO NOT MOVE, DELETE OR DO ANYTHING WITH THESE AT ALL. Is there one called "+"?

How do I get to the "Finder"? Thanks.

Ignore my previous post. If you are unfamiliar with the Mac to the point that you don't know what the Finder is, my previous post would be dangerous indeed. My bad, sorry.

Let's start again: what's the name of your external hard drive?

Yes, there is one called "+". (The desktop icon for the "+" drive looks like this: http://cdn.guistyles.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/mac_hard_drive_icon_for_pc_by_ja2pc.jpg) And it is says I only have 488 MB capacity left. But my project is not saved on this. It is saved on another hard drive called "Project Drive" (the icon for this looks the same as the "+") which has 202 GB capacity left. What is a "volume" and a "partition"? Why isn't "volume" just called "hard drive"? Thanks.

Just because you save your project file to one drive, that doesn't mean that your render files, capture scratch, etc. are all saved to that drive as well. It would seem that some of your files related to the project (capture scratch, etc.) may be stored in that other location. Scratch / render / etc. location is set under the dropdown menu titled Final Cut Pro -> System Settings.

Now, as to why that drive is labeled '+' we can't answer that. Drive naming is usually assigned by the user - if you got your Mac used, then it might have been set that way from the previous user. If you got the Mac new, then you may have set it accidentally (possibly when initializing it, possibly by just clicking on the name twice so that you could change it and accidentally hit the + sign...)

Why would they store in a location other than the one you are saving the file to? And what is the point of having a partitioned drive if it causes confilct with storage? Thanks.

The project file, the file that has the information of what clips are part of it, the sequence information, etc. is VERY different from the actual capture scratch, audio renders, video renders, etc. The project file itself is VERY small compared to the actual video files - you can place the project file anywhere (like in your Documents folder) but store the actual video files on a separate high speed drive.

In all honesty, there are two things you don't want to do:

Store your video files on your OS drive

Store your video files on a partition of the drive your boot partition is on.

Some of the reasons include:

If the OS needs to access the drive the same time you have certain video work going on (whether it be for memory swap, just accessing standard operating files, auto save a project, etc.), it can cause problems for the OS or working with the video, neither something you want to deal with - especially if you're every importing footage from tape.

Video scratch drives get thrashed, A LOT. This gives video scratch drives a higher chance of failure compared to normal OS boot drive. If you're working on video on your boot drive extensively, you run a higher risk of drive failure then if you keep the video on a separate drive for scratch. If the scratch drive is the same drive as the OS/boot drive, and it fails, you won't be a happy camper when your computer no longer works where as if a scratch drive fails that's separate, you may be angry, but your system will continue to work.

On any system that I edit with (whether it be the iMac I'm at right now, the MBP that I sold earlier this year or my Mac Pro at home) - I ALWAYS have my scratch drive be a separate drive (not just separate partition) from my boot drive.

If I am understanding you correctly, you only want to use the OS (ie. hard drive of the computer) as the engine for your project--the thing that serves up the software. All work, capturing, scratching, and projects should be worked and saved on a separate external hard drive? Is this correct?

Yes. At most save the project file (the small file that represents the project in FCP) there, but the actual media - the video and audio - should be on a separate physical drive(s) - the location of which is set through the FCP->System Settings menu where you can tell it where the scratch folders are.

If the project file is saved to the OS, but the media files are on a separate external hard drive, you won't be able to work on the project unless your external hard drive is hooked up to the OS, because the underlying media is in the external hard drive. Correct?

What do you mean by "where you can tell it where the scratch folders are"? What is the "it" and what are "scratch folders"?

That is correct, the drive will need to be connected to work with the media - this is not usually a big deal for most people who edit video with tools such as Final Cut or Adobe Premiere or Avid, etc.

When I say tell "it" it is Final Cut Pro. Scratch folders are where log and transfer, render files, audio files, etc. are all stored as part of a project (if you open up Final Cut, go to help->Final Cut Manual, you can read more about it (scratch storage location) there)

Looks like the most coherent work flow is to open up Final Cut Pro from your OS desktop, hit new project, and then immediately save the new project to to your external which will be both your scratch disk and the location of your new project. Thanks.

Also, check the preferences of the program you are using ... some of them (Photoshop comes to mind) let you specify which volume is to be used for scratch.

Is "volume" the same as "hard drive"? When I do a google search for volume and mac all I get is reference to audio. Thanks.

It can be the same, but not necessarily. See this article for a better understanding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_(computing)

Ramkuma, if you had never set your Final Cut Pro scratch disk to an external hard drive, your boot drive would have probably been used instead. By default I think you can only capture a certain amount of footage into the Capture Scratch folder.

When you reach the maximum storage space, FCP will tell you the volume is full, meaning the Capture Scratch folder on your scratch disk. In other words, just the space you have allocated for capturing footage is full, not the entire drive necessarily. Then you must either target a second volume as the scratch disk or increase the amount of the current one, which can be done in FCP's System Preferences. You can work from multiple scratch disks depending on your needs.

But if you don't even know what the Finder is, you probably need a crash course in OS X before going any further. The Finder is the application that lets you navigate to files and folders on your Mac. It's always running and will only relaunch if you quit it. It's usually the first icon at the left of your Dock, the one that looks like a blue smiley face.

As for the volume +, the icon you posted looks to me like the hard drive icon. Is there a Macintosh HD icon on your desktop? If not, you may have renamed it "+" accidentally. To rename a drive, select the name of it and press Return to make it editable.