Well yes, Red are rated 24x7 while Green aren't, but I'm not sure how many people actually take note of that spec. I don't, and I never turn my stuff off. At one point the issue with the Green drives was either head parking or thermal recalibration after 8 seconds of no activity (I can't remember which), so in a NAS the Green drives would actually be doing a lot more head movement to limits than a Red drive.
In your specific case, Red drives would have given you far better performance while they failed. Over simplifying drastically, they would give up on a bad sector after a few seconds rather than battling on for up to 2 minutes, giving the RAID software an earlier opportunity to do its thing. You'd get better performance during the death spiral. If it were the only drive in my computer, I might prefer the Green approach. (But I, personally, wouldn't).
Last edited by Bushfiva; 14th March 2013 at 11:34.
Reason: Fixed punctuation, so sue me.