When to Break Component Links?

[emphacy]

Links are clearly a very powerful feature. I find it's incredibly useful for me to modify a single version of a design and allow that design to be updated in all other designs which use it. Links also mean multiple people can be working on the same project simultaneously.

Having said that, there are some obvious caveats when using links. You can't copy designs containing linked components to other projects and they seem to have a significant affect on performance.

So how do you work with links? Should I be trying to keep as many as I can or actively be trying to remove them? When do you consider a link to be no longer useful?

[jhackney1972]

I personally do not break a component link "until" it becomes necessary.  One of the great reasons to break a component link it to "lock down a design".  You said it your self, design can be shared using linked components but there is a time when you should lock down any changes to a design and make it ready of production and an historical archive. 

Except from the above reason, I break links when Fusion 360 makes me.  There are operations that just will not work on a linked component.  The reasons can go on an on.  Autodesk's flagship product "Inventor" works entirely with linked components as a normal process and it has been used for years in this fashion.  It is up to you, in the long run, so I suggest you compile your own reasons for breaking a component link in an assembly.