imovie thumbnail storage

[cfs]

Hi Forum,

I switched to mac three years ago and am happy I did. My 21" imac (2ghz. and 1gb memory) running 10.5.8 is still running smooth.

However, I bought my mac with 250gbHD and it is almost full. Most of my content is video thumbnails in imovie. A lot of my thumbnails have been made into movies and were trashed, but I still have a great deal waiting to be worked on. Is there a way to store these on an external to free up some memory? I only have about 7gb left on my imac. I had more but my ipad backups take some space.

One last question. Although my imac still runs great there is sometimes a lag. Does anybody out there think that adding an extra 1gb of memory would actually do something?

Thanks,

CFS

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Extra RAM might help your overall performance, but will not solve any storage capacity problems. One should have at least 10% of the HDD's capacity free, that means you should have 25GB unused space.
Take a look at DiskInventory X, OmniDiskSweeper, JDisk Report or GrandPerspective to see where your HDD space went to.
And you should be able to just move the Movies folder onto an external HDD and work with that.

Btw, "memory" is not the same as "hard drive capacity":
What is Computer Memory? RAM vs Hard Drive
RAM vs. Hard Disk

 

[cfs]

Thanks for the reply. Sorry for the poor explanation. I do understand the difference between the two. I guess I was just trying to get two questions answered in one post that was poorly explained on my part.

I am certain that my HDD space is taken up by my imovie thumbnails. I will try to locate the movies folder and move it to see how it goes. I think I will back up with TM first in case anything goes wrong.

Thanks again for your reply.

CFS

 

[cfs]

Will This Work?

Can I take my imovies event folder and put it on an external and then delete it from my imac? Will I then be able to get the events I want to edit back on my computer when I have time to work with them?

Thanks,

CFS

 

[Dave Braine]

I know that when you import video you can choose where it is stored, an external drive for example, and iMovie will know where it is. However, I dont know if iMovie will know where it is if you just move it. Give it a try.