Should I save as a bundle?

I, personally, wouldn't use bundle files.  If they are corrupted, you lose everything.
 
Save as a project file, but tick "copy audio with project".  At least if .cwp file is corrupted, you still have the audio.
 
I think .cwb files became redundant when Cake came up with the copy audio function.

Great advice so far. The important thing is to do your "save as" to a different location to where the restore will happen

many of my bundles from days of yore are unopenable

Ok Thanks. I do save all audio per project, so I should be good there. I may try to move one to my external drive and then try and reload first just to make sure I don't lose everything.

Hi:
Bundle files is a wonderful way to get rid of all unwanted waves files that you no longer use.
By saving the song into a new folder still does not get rid of the wave files that you don't need.
Sometimes one of my song will go up to almost 2 gig, after playing and replaying different lines or instruments.
So I use the bundle format to save the song to get it back down to like 700 megabytes, and then reopen the bundle project and then resave as normal into a brand new folder.  Of course, after that, I delete the bundle file.
As far as I knwom this is the only way to reduce the file size.
A lot of threads had argued that since hard drives are so cheap now, that there is no need to do that.  I agree, but somehow, I like to see a real file size that reflects the actual size of that particular song.  And that's just me. Besides I truly believe that the more unwanted stuff that you have residing in your saved project can lead to corruption later on.
However and a big however, lately with X1 I have been having troubles with saving with bundle files.  Error after error.
A lot of people have asked about the clean audio project per that particular folder that your song resides in only, but cakewalk has not come up to that yet.  Now this CAP is scanning the whole computer.  Lots of time with you have like 3 hard drives with big capacity.
dan
 
 

Hi:
I just did again as Scook said, just to be sure, and in the Audio folder, the file size is the same, in this case, 800 MGB but the bundle file is only 550 MGB, when I saved it as bundle and reopen under normal in a different folder.
So there is still a diiference in the way the bundle file saves a project and a normal file saves a project.
dan
 

Always save your Cakewalk Project Folder to an External Drive.
 
Once you have it saved there, when periodically re-saving it again to the external drive, you can rename the folder by adding the current date.  Or, just periodacally replace it there, Then you can delete the exsisting duplicated content from the C drive Cakewalk Project Folder. Now you have a clean Cakewalk Project Folder on your C drive, and everything saved on the external drive, in dated Cakewalk Project Folders. This will keep you preject audio folders in tact as well.
 
You then can work from the external drive, by dragging any project folder you desire to work with to the C Drive Cakewalk Project Folder. Or, you can open the Cakewalk Project from the external drive by selecting open with "Sonar". Once you save the exsisting Cakewalk Project Folder to an external drive, you can now try the restore factor you mentioned to get back lost data. If you do get it back, also save it again to the external drive.
 
Best not to try and rename or move exact projects with audio folders in tact, this can cause the corruption you guys speak of. However, you can rename and organize the folders, just don't rename and move the cwp. files. Example, if you have A Cakewalk Project named Rock Guitar, and inside it is the "audio folder" and Rock 1, Rock 2, Rock 3 etc...You can safely rename the Rock Guitar folder name, but you do not want to rename Rock 1, 2, and 3 etc...You can delete Rock 1 and 2, and Rock 3 will still be in tact. So you can organize them here, just stay away from messing with names where you have audio folders. But you can move and rename the folder it is in.
 
Saving and working like this from an external drive will not hurt or change anything with the cwp files, as long as all the plug in info is still available on your hard drive.
 
So save path: My Computer/C Drive/Cakewalk Projects, to the external, then try your restore. if you get back the data, also save it to the external. Then you can clean up the C drive CW Project folder, and work from the external, and save periodically to the external. That is how I do it!...Free