Yeechang Lee wrote:

[Also posted to 
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.arch.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.os.linux.hardware.]

I'm shortly going to be setting up a Linux software RAID 5 array using
16 500GB SATA drives [...]

I'm of the opinion that more drives means more chance of failure, but 
maybe it's just me. I got bitten with a 2-drive failure once in an 8-drive 
RAID-5 set a couple of years ago. Fortunately with the aid of mdadm, etc. 
and having direct access to the drives rather than having them hidden away 
behind some hardware device I was able to recover the data that time, and 
now SMART is getting cleverer ... Howerver ...

Did you consider RAID-6?

I've been using it for some time now (over a year?)

But maybe drives are becoming more reliable though - not lost a drive in 
the past year!

Gordon