Is sharing process eating up all my hard drive space?

[gosox13]

I run a Win XP VM on my iMac through Fusion 5.0.4. Recently, some process or program has been eating up all my hard drive space. I downloaded a program called GrandPerspective to map out what files are using up my hard drive, and discovered a huge file (253 GB) that I did not intentionally create that is the culprit. It is some sort of log file, with the name "private/var/log/samba/log.smbd.old". My son said that Samba is a technology that allows sharing of files across operating systems, and is probably why I can see my Mac folders in my windows VM. This leads me to believe that something is running amuck with my Fusion VM set up that is devouring all my drive space (I now only have 35GB left out of 750 GB), and which probably is also responsible for my computer not running very well lately. My son does not know how to fix the problem. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thank you.

[WoodyZ]

Samba is included in OS X not VMware Fusion and VMware Fusion does not use Samba for its Shared Folders feature.

Have you reviewed the contents of the log file?  I certainly would!   You can gain back that space by deleting the log file.  Before you delete it, you might want to compress a copy of it in case you need to have someone look at it.

[gosox13]

Thanks very much Woody. I already deleted the file yesterday after I identified it as the space hogging culprit, and unfortunately did not know I could copy it in some sort of compressed format for future reference. But after I deleted it,  I read a message board involving what looked like the same issue that said the problem will continue unless I can identify the process that is causing creation of the log. That's why I posted here for help.  I am trying to find a solution to avoid further trouble.

[WoodyZ]

As I previously said "Samba is included in OS X not VMware Fusion and VMware Fusion does not use Samba for its Shared Folders feature." so this is not necessarily the place to be looking for help with an OS X Samba issue unless you've intensionally enabled SMB File Sharing on the Host in order to access the Host from the Guest using SMB/CIFS Sharing and not the VMware Shared Folders feature.  If you have done so then you'll need to review the log before deleting it again or just turn off File Sharing in OS X.

[gosox13]

Woody, thanks again for steering me in the right direction, and letting me know it is not a Fusion problem--that itself is helpful. I checked my Mac preferences and I in fact had checked the box authorizing file sharing to my Mac. I unchecked the permission, and hopefully that will help me prevent the log creation problem from continuing.