What are these files???

[PBG4MAN]

I've noticed recently that my free drive space has been dwindling away. Today I finally got fed up and ran WhatSize to see what's going on. I noticed that there's a folder in the highest level of my hard drive called "Private" that's more than 5 gigs big. The sub-folder that is taking up most of the space is called "var" and there's another folder in there called "vm." There are a bunch of files in this folder named "swapfile" with a number at the end. These files are all the same size: 512MB. The only thing in the "vm" folder is yet another folder called app_profile.
Does anyone have any clue what this stuff is? I'd like to delete it, but not if its gonna mess stuff up.
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[trpnmonkey41]

That is your Virtual Memory, you DO NOT want to mess with that. That is what allows your computer to run quickly without putting all of the stress on the CPU and RAM. A reboot will wipe out the files

 

[PBG4MAN]

That is your Virtual Memory, you DO NOT want to mess with that. That is what allows your computer to run quickly without putting all of the stress on the CPU and RAM. A reboot will wipe out the files

So let me get this straight: I shouldn't delete them myself, but if I reboot, they will be erased?
Besides being slightly counter-intuitive, doesn't this destroy the myth that we can leave our Macs running forever with no problem? (Mine has been running for about a week now.)
Also, is there a way to keep this down in the future?
Thanks for the info.

 

[trpnmonkey41]

You shouldn't delete them yourself because they are files created by programs that you open to allow them to run as quick as possible. Restarting clears this because all of the programs are completely shut down and erase them (its like a cache). It is not a myth that you can leave your Mac running forever but if you keep leaving programs open and run out of System memory (check activity monitor) forcing the vmemory to work overtime then you are in need of a restart. You can leave it on all times without worrying about it crashing but when things start piling up because you are running out of system resources you need should restart

 

[PBG4MAN]

It is not a myth that you can leave your Mac running forever but if you keep leaving programs open and run out of System memory (check activity monitor) forcing the vmemory to work overtime then you are in need of a restart. You can leave it on all times without worrying about it crashing but when things start piling up because you are running out of system resources you need should restart

I was kidding about the myth thing. But I guess I understand why this has happened to me- I've been working on web design and I keep Photoshop and ImageReady running constantly, plus some other stuff, so there you go.
Thanks for the help!!