I'm making a detailed list of formatting a SSD and upgrading from 32 to a 64 bit clean install.  A couple of hopefully final questions before I do this...
 
Is there a RAM price to performance ratio?  What I mean, is there an optimal point of installing more RAM for a Sonar DAW system before it is not productive?  8Gb, 16GB, 32Gb???
 
If I have my plugins installed on my current C:/, which will be my D:/ after installing the OS on a SSD, will I have to reinstall them after putting Sonar on the new 64 bit drive, or can i just point to the d:/plugins folder???  I want to leave them on the HDD to take up less space on the SSD.  This would save me soooo much time and aggravation for prob 30+ plugins to reinstall and reregister.
 
 

You mix and match some important things in your question.
RAM, SSD and plugins and all of that have different impacts then you present in your question. Please research some more and talk some more with people close to you who "know". And please learn some more...
 
A system with 8 to 16 GB ram and a normal harddisk of like 500GB for C:\ and a large D:\ drive for recording is fine for most recordings. It might not be for pure sample based playing... So... We don't know your requirements. Please figure those out with people close to you. And I am quite sure you will find "your needs" soon.

You can never have too much RAM. However, heat may be a consideration. A well ventilated case is a very good idea when having lots of RAM. Also make sure the RAM is matched do not just add on. How much? If you can 32 or 64 Gb is a good amount if your MB will support it. 
 
A couple of big HDs is a good and useful thing to have for data and backup. Putting the OS on an SSD is a popular thing to do and works well. I wouldn't use it for audio streaming though. 
 
 

JohnPutting the OS on an SSD is a popular thing to do and works well. I wouldn't use it for audio streaming though.[/quote]
 
Actually, I use an SSD to host my Kontakt sample library, and it works great -- the audio samples load so much faster into Kontakt than they did from a standard hard disk!

You really, REALLY don't need more than 16GB RAM unless you're using huuuuuge libraries all the time, and/or are doing heavy video editing. I have only 8 and never run into trouble (though I did keep two slots open for easy expansion should the need arise). My system is very responsive. I also use an SSD for OS and VSTs with all heavy content and libraries on another drive. I'm afraid you'll have to reinstall most, if not all, VSTs. They'll be looking for some registry info or authorization which isn't stored with the DLLs usually.
 
EDIT:
I would DEFINITELY use an SSD for audio streaming by the way, if you can afford another large one for your sample libraries and content. Audio recording, probably not, since their maximum life span is determined mostly by the number of writes. But for sample streaming they're very reliably and kick the ass of any current regular spinning HDD. 

I've run into a lack of RAM in projects that use BFD2. It alone can eat up 8 GB with ease. With new libraries using many articulations and layers the more RAM the better. Besides it wont hurt and today RAM is cheap.  

I happened to choose 32 GB one fine day, and never ever have memory issues.  I think 16 GB would be a reasonable starting point - but done as 2 8 GB strips, so that you could add 2 more to get to 32 GB, if your motherboard supports both 8 GB strips and a total of 32 GB.
 
If  MY budget were to allow only memory OR a solid-state drive for samples, I would personally go with memory to max it out every time.  I used to use SSD drives, but found them unreliable, so switched back to regular 7,200 rpm SATA III drives, and have zero issues with performance.
 
Bob Bone
 

As far as plugs, I "think" you need to re-register them (but don't quote me on that). Some (I believe) can simply be used once they are on your machine, others have registry-required keys to run.
 
As far as SSD/HDD, rather than re-type this, I just posted a response 4 hours ago in another thread.
 
As far as RAM... when I built this machine I specifically tailored it so that the CPU/RAM wouldn't have to deal with graphics and that data would go to the card. To compensate, I got a card that is extreme overkill for a DAW, but reduces RAM load considerably. These go hand-in-hand. I do not get "plug happy" recording, so rarely run over 4GB in use (and 2GB of that is the computer idle). I agree with Sander here... and would recommend 8-16GB and get them in 8GB chunks... that way you have other RAM slots open and if feel the need can just throw 8GB more in later if you choose without needing to remove anything. Going that route you can start with 8GB, and if you get the "Oh God" feeling, step up to 16.
 
Edit: I forgot something with RAM that just occurred to me reading another thread. Windows also allocates a paging file (virtual memory) to expand "RAM"... with an SSD you can effectively utilize this since the SSD speed is comparable to RAM. I just checked mine and it has 8GB "in use" after doing quite a bit of tasks on the machine (but my RAM rarely exceeds 3GB "in use"). You can set that paging file even larger than Windows allocates on its own if needed, and with space free on your SSD you can use this effectively.

I haven't used BFD2 but I can't really imagine the unstreamed portion of a kit being 6GB or more. Even so, I said 16GB, not 8, if you want to be safe. If you're constantly using huge libraries, get more, but if you don't you really won't see ANY performance difference between 16/32/64 and even 8 in many cases. It's always a good idea to leave open slots though. Even starting with 2x4, that means you could later add 2x8 or even 2x16 which definitely takes care of sampling needs.

My Kronos (total apples and oranges of course) only has 3GB of RAM (the Linux based OS uses about 1 of that) and within the two free GB of RAM manages to load about 20GB of samples currently, with the help of streaming. Just to show that GBs of RAM only make up a small part of the amount of samples you can actually load - especially if you have a dedicated drive for your libraries.

mettelus
 
Edit: I forgot something with RAM that just occurred to me reading another thread. Windows also allocates a paging file (virtual memory) to expand "RAM"... with an SSD you can effectively utilize this since the SSD speed is comparable to RAM. I just checked mine and it has 8GB "in use" after doing quite a bit of tasks on the machine (but my RAM rarely exceeds 3GB "in use"). You can set that paging file even larger than Windows allocates on its own if needed, and with space free on your SSD you can use this effectively.

I just found this thread again because the 3 to 7 GB upgrade thread made me think of it. Then I saw you had edited your post. I'm not a hardware developer or IT expert, but it's my understanding that putting your page file on an SSD is a bad idea in the sense that it will degrade your disk a LOT quicker. SSDs have a maximum number of writes before they fail, as I'm sure you're aware of, and the page file gets written to a LOT even during mild computer use. I've made certain with both my SSD-based systems that my page file is on a regular drive. I haven't A/Bd but it doesn't seem particularly slow because of it.