Setting up a NAS

Hello,
I'm looking to setup a modest NAS for my home. My question is to the appropriate hard drive type and RAID setup. The NAs will be used to store mostly media (pictures, music, video) for the home network that will be occasionally streamed to the PS3 or tablets. Also for some general storage of files not needed on the devices all the time (old documents, school work, etc). I'm thinking of getting 2 1TB drives, but with prices as they are, might drop down to 500GB.

For example, Western Digital offers Green, Blue and Black Hard drives. Which one is best for this application? Also, is RAID 1 going to be worth the extra investment to protect me from file losses? I'm a little inexperienced in this area and don't want to spend money unnecessarily, but at the same time, don't want to go cheap and leave myself exposed to massive data loss.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

First, I have to say that you need to understand that RAID is NOT to be used in place of good backup. If the array goes you lose it all, period.

RAID is fault tolerant though and will assist in protecting data.

The most important question is how much space you think that you will need by this time next year or so and then plan your NAS accordingly. Depending on your budget, I would lean towards a 2 or 4 bay ReadyNAS for a basic consumer level NAS.

I regularly backup critical files online via dropbox. I want to use RAID to protect my other files (music etc) against hard drive failure. I thought that's what RAID was all about.