Should I even be using this thing? Is it supposed to clean out all those audio files that are not being used by you session? I did a search and read a lot of "computer hangs, have to reboot" nightmares. If it doesn't really affect the computers performance, I would rather not use it.

I don`t use it at every session but I eventually try to get around to it when I have to back up 20 songs x 15 tracks of audio at high bit rates then it can clean up a lot of bad takes and left over files. I have never had any bad repercussions--but---hey---don`t blame me if you do. If your recording is mostly only for your private use then as you said, it should not be a big problem.

I clean my audio folders all the time and never have any problems. I also clean the picture cache often. It's basic housekeeping that I believe contributes to Sonar loading very fast on my system. 

You can also just re-save the project in a new folder and SONAR will only save the audio that's being used by the project.

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://digifreq.com/?DigiFreq
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garrigus


You can also just re-save the project in a new folder and SONAR will only save the audio that's being used by the project.

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://digifreq.com/?DigiFreq
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://newtechreview.com/?NewTechReview

^^^  This is what I do as well. 
Test that all works well -then delete the original bloated project directory.

+1 on saving to a new folder to automatically weed out the weeds.

Now if it would only do it for poor playing - sigh.....

Bob Bone

If I use clean all audio folder, should I first disconnect my external USB hdd that has backups of projects. Looking at the help files, I'm a tad unsure, as it says make sure your projects are stored on local drives, not external. Doesn't say anything about them being on both at the same time.
My projects are obviously stored on the internal HDD by default.
Bibs