I've only had to mess with the Sync/Caching buffers once on a project that was overloaded with audio tracks all trying to write/retrieve from a single drive (which may indeed help in this case considering it is a laptop) but I ALWAYS observe the methods I posted above.
 
Recording: Open the Scarlett MixControl software (or ASIO Control Panel within Sonar but for some reason that doesn't reliably launch the app so I just open MixControl directly) and lower my buffers to reduce latency.
 
Editing/mixing: Open MixControl and increase buffers.
 
Although my system is quite powerful and I rarely experience dropouts after purchasing the Scarlett by doing this I have greatly reduced any glitches, freezeups and/or crashes while doing more intensive and plugin heavy work. I just do it out of habit now even if I'm not experiencing problems because frankly glitches suck and they harsh my mellow, duuuude.
 
But that's just me and I'm... well... me. ;-)