So…. it appears that MAC OS X , version 10.7 (Lion) breaks SMB file sharing. Crap…..
Searching for a workaround..
Update:
I found out that Lion uses SMBX vs SAMBA which was causing my problem. SMBX is suppose to be much faster and more efficient… I reinstalled SAMBA via SMBUp. A write up can be found on HSTi’s Support Knowledgebase.