How do experienced Sonar users organise their projects and customised presets?
I'm particularly interested in a disaster recovery strategy.
My current DAW has a Data subdirectory which stores my original project files as well as all modifications to instrument and effect presets. All I have to do is back that directory up and if my HDD fails, reinstall the basic DAW and copy that directory back on.
With Sonar, am I better to keep my projects in a seperate folder or within Cakewalk Content?
When I modify a preset or create an original setting, where will the change be stored, globally in Cakewalk Content or with each individual project?
I hope to install Sonar tomorrow on a new notebook (I'm currenly demo only), so this is just me planning ahead.
Thank you in advance for any advice and suggestions.

I can't knowledgeable speak to the preset/customize issue. I do know that some  presets are kept per project other presets are global. Others will know better on this.
 
My project folders are kept in a separate drive E:/ with each project folder having it's own audio folder. That way a single backup is all I need to save every project.
Look under Preferences-File locations for specific file placemet locations
 
All my samples files (Garrititan, Kontakt etc) are kept in an external hard drive.
 
 
 
Fred
 
 

Regarding projects, I agree with Fred.
 
Save them to a dedicated internal drive, using the per project folder option set in preferences.
 
Its easy to select the entire drive or specific projects for backup purposes
 
With presets the situation isn't as clear cut because plugins store any user defined presets in various locations including the Windows registry.

The guys above already referred to this..
Reading your question I wondered, what do you do with the audio.

I don't have any audio. I work entirely with virtual instruments because recording my guitar on my own proved to be too problematic. If I want to add my guitar in the future, I'll take my backing tracks to a studio.
I chose Sonar because it seems to have an excellent range of instruments and I needed a new 32 bit programme to be more compatible with Nuendo, which is what the studio owner uses. My old DAW was 8 bit.

Sonar is a bit of a mess when it comes to file organisation. The most comprehensive route is to go into the Folder Locations section of the settings, and make sure all those locations are backed up. If you're lucky, they'll only refer to 2 different places - Cakewalk Content, and Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\Cakewalk\SONAR Platinum\ - which makes it easy to manage. Also, make sure you're saving audio with the projects (meaning the Global Audio Folder in the Audio Data settings page should always be empty.)
 
Unfortunately Cakewalk Content contains a load of irrelevant static data that you don't change and which can be re-downloaded from Cakewalk for free, so if time or space is at a premium, exclude Cakewalk Content/Audio Library, Cakewalk Content/Video Tutorials, and Cakewalk Content/Sonar Platinum/Tutorial Projects. Typically 80% of Cakewalk Content is in those 3 directories and they're not files you change, so you don't need them in your backup.
 
Don't forget to consider backing up your VST paths - many plugins will not work if not reinstalled properly, but some will, and the others will act as placeholders to remind you of what you had installed before, at least. You may also want to back up any external sample, loops, or presets directories that you have - I put all these under a common top-level directory to make this easier.