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This is what I used to do (using SVN) as I was scared that moving files using the LV project would break my VCS. Actually it turned out to be a far bigger pain constantly re-finding VIs in the LV Project. Now I perform all file operations using the Project window and I just rely on the VCS tool (I use Hg now) to figure out what has gone wrong. Sure you may lose some of the file "history", but at least most of the time the LV Project does not get confused.

Strangely, if you put "help@@google.com" into item name, you get "help(@)google.com" in menu. That's as far as I got. Ed. Aaaand I found it: put underscore before @ in item name and you're good: "help_@google.com"

If you need to store test specific information (operator, temperature, equipment name & serial number etc... ) with the streaming data, you can write custom properties to the TDMS file. This example from the NI forum works well., just create your own arrays of property names and values to be stored... ( is this the same as the question asked on the NI forums? http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Separating-TDMS-file-data-and-playing-it-back/m-p/2727403#M807331 )

I would only recomend TDMS for a customer who needs the high streaming, and is very comfortable with NI tools. I recomend for the most part saving data in simple ASCII files. The reason I like ASCII files. 1. Human Readable 2. Can be read by anything (Excel, Diadem, Matlab, any data viewing program worth its salt) 3. Been around for forever and will be around forever. 4. Non engineer follks feel comfortable working with ASCII files 5. VERY easy to use. The knock on ASCII files is they can be slow and big. My usual answer is hard drives are cheap, and I can design the program to save data in a managable amount. That being said I have seen data requirements where TDMS would be a good solution. The cons for TDMS 1. NI propiatary. NI can change the format when they want. We have already been through TDM, TDMS version 1, and TDMS version 2. I think the format is stable for know, however it is something to be aware of. 2. Non Human Readable 3. Outside of the NI ecosphere who has heard of TDMS? 4. Only works with NI Diadem and LabVIEW (Can download a free plug in for Excel, but that is a pain for folks. You will get a phone call everytime somebody wants to open the data) 5.Learning curve In short my default file format is ASCII. If you need the high speed streaming, lower footprint, and are comfortable using NI tools TDMS could be a nice fit.