Good morning! I received my SanDisk 500Gb external SSD yesterday. I just got it up and running with my laptop and I'm seeking some advice on how to truly take advantage of its performance to help with latency and to keep Sonar running smoothly. I've had plenty of issues moving to a new studio with a new set up, but have solved most of the issues. The last issue at hand is the 5400rpm hard drive in this PC Laptop. Essentially within Sonar, what settings do I need to change in order to have the audio written/read to/from the new SSD. So far I have went into preferences (Sonar), under File/Folder Locations and changed the project Files to the SSD along with changing the Global audio folder and picture folder to the SSD as well. Should I change all the locations to the SSD? For example, Templates, Wave files, plug in layouts? Top to botton? Thank you in advance!

A faster HD allows faster project/plug-in load times, higher audio track counts and better performance from plug-ins that stream samples (n.b. nothing bundled with Platinum streams samples) only. Latency is affected by audio driver buffer settings and plug-in delay compensation NOT hard drive characteristics. There is no real performance advantage in moving templates or anything else in "Cakewalk Content" or the user directory to a faster HD.
 
While it is is possible to  to change the default project and global audio folder keep in mind, if SONAR starts up and the drive is not found, SONAR will change the preference settings back to factory default settings.
 
Assuming you are using per-project audio folders, it is easy enough to create projects and stream project audio to/from any drive available to a PC without making any preference changes.
 

Here's where I'm at right now. I copied my cakewalk files to the new SSD and changed my global settings to the SSD and tested recording and the audio is showing up in the old HD still. It's not showing up at all in the new SSD. Even with the global settings reading they are set to the new one. Thanks for your reply!

I don't believe I'm using per project audio folders. All the audio is located in one folder together. Is there a benefit to switching?

Per-project audio folders have been the recommended practice for over a decade. Projects with per-project audio folders are easier and more reliable to backup/restore. In fact, later versions of Platinum made it more difficult to continue using the Global Audio folder for project audio by removing the option from preferences and defaulting to per-project audio folders.
 

Excellent! I actually just figured out how to get my audio flow onto the SSD and also looks like it defaulted into the per-project folder as well! I literally clicked save as under the new SSD and bam! haha

By the way, I've gotta throw it out there that the hard drive change made a WORLD of a difference in the latency. In order to record 6 drum mics for a drum track, I had to have the bit block size at 2048 with miserable latency and still dropping out occasionally. As of today reading and writing directly to the external SSD, bit blocks at 128 with a 5.6ms latency. Recorded 6 mics tracking drums without a single issue. So if anyone's struggling and the processors aren't to blame, check your HD specs. 5400rpm's too slow!

Another thing you could do is replace the internal 5400RPM conventional HD with a 2.5" SATA SSD.
That would help with OS load time, program load time, etc (make the laptop a little more "snappy").

I'd love to. My budget has taken some bigger than expected hits so were running smoothly as of now and I'm keeping my wallet in my pocket for now. haha