John
Is this thread about mastering or about archiving?

John, you hit it on the head.  Mastering a project is quite different from what is being debated here.  A mastering engineer is a highly skilled position that will take your (almost) final mix and make sure it is being prepped to burn a master cd (at 44.1 and 16bits), a vinyl master for pressing your new LP platter, and at higher rates for storage and digital transfers. 
 
Granted, some mastering houses will tell you to bring in the various tracks you recorded because the mix is bad, but they also will prep everything for the pressing and duplication companies. 

FYI   Scott Garrigus says to beware of bundles as they can become unstable.  He has a paragraph on page 42 of the X2 Power book about bundles and also what he recommends for storage. 

re: 2., that's something that annoys me a lot too.  If I open up a song in X2 that I created in e.g. Producer 8.5, Sonar tells me that it can't find Dim Pro, it can't find Rapture, it can't find z3ta etc.  There's no 'locate dll' option or similar.  I think it uses some kind of UID (Unique IDentifier) based method of determining whether or not a particular Synth is installed and my guess is that this identifier changes when Sonar's major version does (is this true?)  If anybody knows of a way around this issue, I'd love to hear it.

More likely it is a change in format from DX1 to VSTi that is causing the plug-ins to be missing and not the change in versions of SONAR. The only way I know of to get the old plug-ins to be found is to install the DXi versions.

Cheers, I'll give that a try.  I usually only install the VST variants...

I've not had issues importing BUN files from 8.5 - but then again none were done using DXi's. They were all VSTi's. Maybe that's the reason?

Sorry, but I likes my BUNs.
 
Redundancy is the key to survival!
 
Yes, you can have "per-project audio folders".
 
Yes, you can "freeze" all your MIDI tracks.
 
For archival/storage/transfer purposes, BUN files can be added insurance.  They are like ZIP files. However, they do work better with the software version that created them.
 
Another way to archive projects is to simply ZIP them in a folder:
 
1. Right-click anywhere
2. Select "New - Compressed (zipped) Folder"
3. Give it a name
4. Drag the entire project folder to it and its done
 
As far as corruption goes... it's everywhere.
 
 
Steve

I like the BUN files too. I tend to freeze tracks the nearer I get to completion. I like the option of having those frozen tracks in the BUN. Moving stuff to the laptop, etc... find a nice quiet room for mic...
 
If midi editing is basically complete, there's no need to have the synth eating up processor cycles. I don't normally use a synth's effects,  so I can freeze the synth and still modify DAW based effects. (If I really think I've got a track down, I'll bake the effects in - even less CPU cycles wasted). I'm really big on freezing tracks and baking the effects - this gives me way plenty headroom for the plugins I'm actively working with.
 
Now, as soon as I open a BUN, I immediately save as a CWP. It just makes more sense to save as a CWP while you're actively working - I have a button on my FaderPort set to do a project save.  I hit that button every 5 minutes or so just in case I lose some work. When I'm done with Sonar, I'll save as CWP one last time, and then as a BUN.
 
 

Count me in as a fan of the "save all tracks as WAV files, one raw, one with effects and automation." I come from an analog tape background, so I regard saving the raw recordings as the most important part.
 
The obsolescence thing cuts both ways. In the future, there may be mixers, effects, or whatever that are BETTER than what you used. Having the raw audio files means you can take advantage of new technology while retaining the original performance.
 
Also I think this was mentioned, but when it comes to virtual instruments, make sure you save the MIDI files and presets you used for the instrument, as well as the rendered track. You may want to do some editing at some point.
 
As to bundles, I would not rely on them as your sole means of backup because yes, if they become corrupt, you're hosed. But they're very convenient.
 
Acid used to have a function back in the day where it saved each track as an individual WAV file. I think there are some other programs that do something similar, I'd like to see that feature in Sonar to help automate the backup process.

I think that would be a very practical and needed feature to Sonar, Craig. I would love to see an automated back up process as well. Or, maybe a feature that you could select between different types of back ups and have it set to a one button select and back up feature.