static audioclip array

Hello,
I have a prefab that gets placed 30 times. I have an array of sounds on this prefab. Previously this was a public array of AudioClip and I assigned 4 sounds to this prefab in the inspector. I realize that each of the 30 prefab instances had its own AudioClip array of the same 4 sounds, so later I changed the code to have a public static array of AudioClip. Since public static is not serialized I assigned the 4 clips in code, making sure to only load them once. This made more sense to me since the 4 sounds in the array will be the same for each prefab. I thought it better to have 1 static copy for all the prefabs than to have 30 arrays, 1 for each instance.

It is pretty convenient to assign things in the inspector so I am wondering: If I had 1,000 objects, how would having a public array (a copy for each prefab) stack up against a public static array. Could the public static array be that much better when dealing with AudioClips? I am hoping someone can chime in with the answer to avoid creating a benchmark test. I would think the only penalty would be the arrays themsleves. But wouldn't they simply contain references to the audio clip on disk, making it not so bad?

 

Almost my problem:
If I have an array contains four elements, How can make this array ALWAYS contains the four elements without change during my game ?