File maintenance

I’m having a problem keeping my audio in one place. At the beginning of my session, I set my record folder and
when I close out of Cubase, my audio files are in different places. I try to assign them to my external FireWire
drive but they end up in my Macintosh computer user area. What am I doing wrong? Thanks

Also, can I redirect those files that are on my Mac to an external drive and have my project recognize them? Thanks