Every disk has one state: a glyph, a short label, a sentence saying what it means, and at most one thing to do. A disk in trouble also says since when: Since 9:12 PM · 25 min. The state shows in the sidebar, the Overview’s table, the quick menu and at the top of the disk’s page; in the window, hover over it for the full explanation.
| Glyph |
Means |
| Filled green dot |
Connected and attached. |
| Half-filled green dot |
Connected, with a note: read-only, or a remount is needed. |
| Spinning amber arc |
Working on it: connecting, retrying, reconnecting or formatting. |
| Red dot with a cross |
Needs you: can’t connect, apps see errors, or another computer took the disk. |
| Hollow ring |
Connected but not attached, or not shown because macOS can’t read it. |
| Dashed ring |
Empty: nothing on it yet. |
| Padlock |
Another computer has the disk. |
| State |
What it means |
What to do |
| Not connected |
BeamDisk isn’t connected to your servers: after Disconnect All, or before you connect. |
Click Connect All. |
| Connecting… |
BeamDisk is logging in to the server. |
Wait a moment. |
| Retrying |
The server didn’t answer or turned the login away. BeamDisk says why and when it tries again. |
Usually wait. Otherwise fix the cause and click Try Again: A disk won’t connect. |
| Can’t connect |
The server refused the login, for the reason shown. |
Fix the cause, then Try Again: A disk won’t connect. |
| Reconnecting |
The server stopped responding. BeamDisk is holding writes, counting up to the hold time; nothing is lost yet. |
Usually nothing: When the server stops responding. Disconnect (or Eject) only if the server isn’t coming back. |
| Apps see errors |
The server has been unreachable longer than the hold time, so apps see errors on the disk. BeamDisk is still reconnecting. |
Check the server and the network. |
| Remount needed |
The disk came back after an outage longer than the hold time. |
Click Remount. |
| State |
What it means |
What to do |
| Reserved by another computer |
Another computer is using this disk. It connects here once the other computer lets go of it. A disk ejected here shows it once another computer has started using it. |
Release it there, or Take Over… if that computer is off: One Mac per disk. |
| Reservation lost |
Another computer took the disk while it was connected, so reads and writes to it fail here. |
Find out who. Take Over… only if that computer is off or done with it. |
| State |
What it means |
What to do |
| Connected |
The disk is attached and working. |
Nothing. |
| Empty disk |
Nothing on it yet. |
Click Format…: Format a new disk. |
| Formatting… |
BeamDisk is formatting it as APFS. It’s attached when that’s done. |
Wait a moment. |
| Read-only |
BeamDisk opens what’s on it read-only: exFAT, FAT or NTFS, for example, or a disk written with 4 KiB sectors by Windows, Linux or another initiator. |
Nothing, or see File systems. |
| Unreadable here |
macOS can’t read what’s on it (Linux or ZFS, for example), so BeamDisk doesn’t show it: it can’t be erased by mistake. |
Use it from a computer that reads it. |
| Not attached |
Connected to the server, but not attached on this Mac, so other computers can use it. |
Click Attach. |
A connected disk can carry a note under its state, with its own action:
- Grew on the server, with the old and new sizes. Click Use the New Space…: Make a disk bigger.
- …of this disk isn’t used yet: its volume is smaller than the disk. Click Use the New Space… to grow the volume.
- Smaller on the server now, with the old and new sizes. Check the server before using the disk: what was past the new end is gone.
- Becomes read-only (or writable) the next time it’s attached. Click Attach Again.
