Hi There:

I need to set up a RAID for my system, because I am now getting more HD work and have a client as well who insists on going 1:1.  My internal SATA was fine before, but he just showed up on my doorstep with 1200G of material and I am drowning.  I have a Sonnet Fusion D500P enclosure arriving tomorrow as well as a Tempo SATA E4p PCIe card for my G5.  I was planning to purchase Seagate Barracuda 500 or 750 drives.  I saw one or two posts that recommended using MATCHED drives in an array.  Did they mean matched as in the same model/size/manufacturer (makes sense) or matched as in buying power tubes for a guitar amplifier, i.e. specifically matched units that are sold as a group?  How would I do this with the Barracudas?  Consecutive serial numbers?  Please advise, and thank you for your help.

/bob

I woudn't necessarily worry about matching down to the Serial Numbers.  I would at least use the same brand/make/model.  If you buy several drives from a major supplier, you may actually get sequential S/N's though.

I strongly discourage any attempt to get sequential serial numbers for a RAID array!  actually you want to do the opposite.  Suppose the manufacturer has a problem on the production line...a batch of serial numbers have a less than optimal life expectancy...  By choosing hard drives from the same batch, you are, statistically, greatly increasing your risk of array failure.  For redundant arrays, I get drives from different sources exactly for this reason.

janusz