Hello, sorry if this is a duplicate question, I couldn't find an answer. I purchased a RN214, arriving later this week. I started with 2 WD Red 6TB drives. I'm looking to run RAID 1. I'm not using this as my only backup, just one location. I would like a typical RAID 1 setup - I know I don't want to use XRAID. Is Flex-raid a proprietary Netgear tech? In case of an enclosure failure, I want to make sure I can plug one of the hard drives into a Linux box to be able to read items. Is Flex-raid just another way of saying "RAID?"
Neither is actually Netgear proprietary. "Flex-RAID" is what Negear calls what everyone else calls "RAID", just to differentiate it from XRAID. XRAID (at least in the current OS) is really just standard RAID but wioth a layer on top that makes expansion decisions for you instead of requiring you to know anough to execute them yourself.
XRAID volumes can still be standard RAID1, RAID5, or RAID6, depending on the number of drives. One limitiation is that XRAID is limited to one volume per chassis.
X-RAID is an auto-expandable RAID technology that is available only on ReadyNAS systems. This is usually used by first time NAS users or users without extensive knowledge on RAID system.
X-RAID allows you to add storage space without reformatting your drives or moving your data to another location. Because the expansion happens online, you can continue to use your ReadyNAS system while the volume capacity increases. As @Sandshark said, one limitation of X-RAID is that it's a one volume architecture and all disks that you will plan to add will be added to that volume and also there are advantages to that such as easy management and the auto expansion feature.
On the other hand
Flex-RAID/RAID allows you to have multiple volume setup on your system and choose what RAID leve you will be using. However, with Flex-RAID formatting, if you want to add disks to expand your storage capacity, you must back up the data to another system, add a disk, reformat the RAID volume, and restore the data to the new RAID volume. With X-RAID, none of those administrative tasks are required. Instead, with X-RAID, your volume automatically expands to accommodate additional disks or larger-capacity disks.
