Western Digital RE4 Drives vs Western Digital AV Drives
 

I've been using 3GB/s RE4 drives in RAID 1 and have been happy so far. But I've recently learned of the WD AV drives designed for always on streaming. The RE4's have 64MB caches while the AV drives have a 32MB cache. The 3Ware 9550SXU controllers have their own cache.

Are these better drives for servers?

RE is 'RAID Edition'. The 'AV' drives are rebranded/modififed (with different firmware) WD 'Green Power' drives. BTW, there are 64MB cache model WD-AV drives.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=150

For RAID use, the REs are much better. For general non-RAID 'single drive' I'd trust the REs more, but if you arent using RAID then the slightly cheaper WD Black would probably be my choice.

Green power drives shutdown to save power. AV drives are intended to spin all the time.

By 'shutdown' I guess you mean 'intellipark'?

The AV drives have intellipark just like the 'Green Power' drives.

The RE/Black drives have a longer warranty, and in the case of the REs, higher load/unload cycles (300,000 vs 600,000) and MTBF (1,000,000 vs 1,200,000).(MTBF isnt listed for the 'black' drives anymore).

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/librar...879-701250.pdf

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/librar...879-771444.pdf

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/librar...879-771434.pdf