That's why cwb (Sonar bundles) are pretty much obsolete. Just zip a project folder and you have one container to send to someone/archive. Doing that also allows error correction on the files and you can do CRC checking to make sure the zip you recieved/created is all there. If you worry about such things.



Corrected- cwp to cwb, crc to CRC added the words 'archive' and 'created'

I just found a section talking about "Defragmenting a Project". In it it says you can make sure a project's data is all in one place (for quick read times) by saving it as a bundle, unbundling it and then saving it again normally. Most of the system performance improvements section (as well as other parts of the manual) seem to be very old so the Per Project Folders thing may not have been added at the time of writing.
 
I am wondering if perhaps using the Save As/PPAF/Copy All Audio function and saving it to a new place will have the same affect (as in gathering up all the scattered bits of the project on the drive and then saving them in a nice tidy hunk of disk space). Seems like it might but I'm wondering if anyone knows for sure. I find Bundles are a sure fire way to get a project to start acting quirky so I try to avoid them and if the goal is to make a project work BETTER seems like a "1 step forward 2 steps back" type of "fix".
 
The entry appears on page 1462 of the Reference Guide:
 
"Your project file may be excessively fragmented
Audio data can be processed most efficiently if it is arranged in consecutive physical locations on your hard drive.
During normal SONAR usage, a project's audio data can become fragmented into chunks stored at discontiguous locations on your disk. Accessing these discontiguous chunks can consume extra processing time, which can leadto dropouts.
Try defragmenting your project file:
1. Open the project file that has audio problems.
2. Save it as a Cakewalk Bundle (.cwb) file by selecting Save As from the File menu and selecting Cakewalk
Bundle from the Save As Type drop-down list and clicking the Save button.
3. Close the project.
4. Open the Cakewalk Bundle you just closedSaving then re-opening the bundle file automatically defragments the audio data used by the project, reducing the chances of a dropout or other audio problem.
When you are ready to save the file again, you may want to save it as a normal (.cwp) file. Saving and opening .cwp files takes less time than saving and opening bundle files."
 
Cheers.

The problem with bundles is of course if (for whatever reason) a bundle becomes corrupt, you have lost your entire project with no chance of retrieving it.
 
If a Project file becomes corrupt, you will always have your audio tracks saved as separate files inside the daughter Audio Folder within your project, so a rebuild is always possible.
 
I used a bundle once (long time ago) which did become corrupt and i lost a shed load of editing, so for that reason, I've never used them since.

All that hooey about bundle/unbundle/resave is from the Old Days when scribes had to have the data all together to be able read and write more quickly.
 
A regular defrag of your audio/project drives once in a while should be plenty.

BobF
All that hooey about bundle/unbundle/resave is from the Old Days when scribes had to have the data all together to be able read and write more quickly.
 
A regular defrag of your audio/project drives once in a while should be plenty.

That's actually the entry before the Project Defrag in the Performance section of the manual. Kind of thinking that if I can just "defrag" a project when it starts getting a little quirky by doing a Save As/Copy All Audio action then I save myself a lot of time imaging the drive(s) and defragging up to 1.5TB of drive space.
 
Really the only super intensive thing I do on the system is music related and I only start getting oddities as projects get laden with audio so if just doing the defrag on individual projects will essentially do the same thing on an "As Needed" basis then I can put off full drive defragging for longer. I mean I don't want to have to do a full defrag every time a project starts getting sluggish.
 
It should be noted that I do seriously think most of the issues I have are read/write related because they clear up drastically after I do bulk archiving of clip filled tracks.
 
Of course the whole point of this thread is that I'm going to be hopefully easing up this read/write issue by moving the Project folders to the second drive BUT even then it could be a nice trick to have if I get really crazy on a project and need a performance boost.
 
Also I do intend to eventually attempt doing stuff on a single drive laptop for mobility/portability so if this idea works then it would certainly be one more thing to keep things running reasonably smooth.
 
I just don't know a whole heck of a lot about HDD logic and this will be hard to test (for me anyway). I'm also thinking that to get a true impression of whether moving to the second drive is helping that (if this type of Save As action does indeed act as a defrag) that I'd have to do it on the C drive first, see how the project responds and THEN use that as my "before" impression of how the drive move affects performance.
 
Hopefully that makes sense.
 
Cheers.

When it's time for a drive defrag, I start it before I quit for the day.  I always leave my machine on so it's not like I have to wait for a defrag to finish before I can go to bed :)
 
It might help too if you periodically archive away projects that aren't being actively worked to another drive or partition.
 
As to advice in manuals, I'm not sure how often that stuff gets updated.  The rare times I've had a project start groaning, I've bounced tracks with lots of clips and/or edits.  This has helped a fair amount.
 
YMMV ...

Yeah, I've got a pile of tricks up my sleeves for making a project stand at attention and I don't encountered too many issues as my system is quite powerful. I just figured if Bundles can consolidate disk data in this manner then perhaps a PPAF Save As action could as well.
 
I actually never leave my system on after I'm done and go so far as to turn off the PSU via the power switch AND the turn off the power bar it's hooked up to. Prevents voltage leak (I pay hydro here), keeps my weird ass monitor from magically turning itself on in the middle of the night to a non existent TV channel (SOOOPER LOUD STATIC NOISE) and really let's all the bits and bytes take a nap so they're ready for action the next day (I reboot my gen purpose laptop every night for the same reason... just works better with regular reboots).
 
Less wear on the fans and crud too.
 
Anyway... I guess maybe this is perhaps a tech support question but I'll probably just do it anyway because I really do want to make sure I know EXACTLY what provides any performance boosts along the way.
 
I'll be doing a massive file purge at some point so I'll hold off on bulk backup/defrag until then (I back up important stuff one item at a time to save on storage which is at a premium in the Beeps household... currently occupied by clean starter images. No need for chaotic, bloated spazzo images... lol).

Beep, given where you are now and where you want to go, I would be inclined to set aside a chunk of disk space on an external drive and methodically do a "save as" for each project, in it's own folder, using PPF and Copying all Audio across.
Once you're done you can delete everything off your old drive and then move it all back

Really the bulk of what's on here now is either finished or trash so a lot of it will be just the final project versions stored on DVDs and left off the system (and really the only reason I'd do that is because I'm a pack rat when it comes to even silly things I'll never touch again).
 
What is going to be the biggest task after sorting through all of that is actually rounding up all the zipped program installers (not the unzipped ones which I'll delete) and backing those up. I gotta have almost a hundred different doodad, update, sample, prorgram, etc installers floating around as well as their unzipped versions... but not all of them because some things I've downloaded but didn't install. I also need to cross reference it all because some things I haven't even downloaded but intended to so essentially I want to have every program, driver, sample pack, whatever backed up somewhere so if I want to reinstall I don't have to dl it again. It's all taking up a huge amount of space unnecessarily (and I have multiple copies of some things from foolishly using Copy instead of Cut when moving things around on the system... stoopid I know). That's not really related to all this but kind of in a roundabout way is because if I get rid of all the gack, have everything organized, backed up, etc THEN I can blitzkrieg the system with CCleaner/DiskDefrag. I was highly unorganized when I first starting working on this machine (which I somehow managed to build myself despite knowing jack titty about computers) so it's kind of like a messy garage. Looking at the mess and always having to dig for everything is annoying but the thought of cleaning it up all the way to back is overwhelming so you end up with a couple neat piles at the front of a mountain of mess all gnarled up and intertwined amongst itself. lol
 
That's why I was thinking of just wiping the whole thing and starting from scratch but the system works well so I'd be worried I'd screw something up or forget something..... and really going through the endless hours of intalling everything again would probably be far worse than just cleaning up the virutal garage.