A small text dialog will pop up explaining the function of that screen area. For our purposes, a volume can be thought of as a distinct physical memory device . For example, the floppy discs which fit into the floppy disc drive which appears as a slot in the Mac system unit, the built in hard disc , and any external hard disc are all individual volumes. A Macintosh machine may have several different volumes attached at once. Volumes which are currently available show up as icons at the upper right of the screen, with the volume name written below.
Hard disks show up as flat rectangles and floppies as folder-shaped icons.
You can disconnect a volume by dragging its icon into the trash. This will cause a floppy disc volume to be ejected. Server volumes will simply be disconnected. Local hard disc volumes cannot be disconnected. Files and Folders Volumes are long-term storage devices for files and folders.