NETGEAR's Flex-RAID technology allows you to choose from among several industry-standard RAID levels:
- JBOD. This most basic RAID level does not protect your data from loss if one of your drives fails. JBOD is available only on volumes consisting of a single hard disk.
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RAID 0. RAID 0 distributes data across multiple disks, resulting in improved disk performance compared to systems that do not use RAID formatting. The total capacity of your storage system equals the capacity of the smallest of your disk drives times the number of disks. RAID 0 is available on volumes consisting of two or more hard disks.
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RAID 1. This RAID level provides full redundancy of your data, because it duplicates data across multiple disks. Exactly the same data is stored on two disks at all times. RAID 1 protects your data from loss if one disk fails. The total capacity of our storage system equals the capacity of your smallest disk.
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RAID 5. This RAID level also provides data redundancy, but it requires at least three disks. RAID 5 uses the capacity of one disk to protect you from data loss if one disk fails. Your data is distributed across multiple disks to improve disk performance. The total capacity of your storage system equals the capacity of all your disks minus the capacity of one disk. It is supported on systems with at least four drive bays.
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RAID 6. This RAID level can recover from the loss of two disks. Your data is distributed across multiple disks to improve disk performance. The total capacity of your storage system equals the capacity of all your disks minus the capacity of two disks. It is supported on systems with at least four drive bays.
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RAID 10 (or 1+0). This RAID level uses both RAID 1 and RAID 0 technology. First, your data is duplicated so that exactly the same data is stored on two or more disks. Then, the data is distributed across additional disks to improve disk performance. It is supported on systems with at least four drive bays.
The Flex-RAID levels that you can select depend on the number of disks included in the volume. The following table describes the Flex-RAID levels that are available for a given number of disks. It also indicates whether adding a disk for data protection is possible for each configuration.
Flex-RAID levels and data protection
|
Number of Disks per Volume |
RAID Level |
Can I add a disk for data protection? |
| 1 | JBOD | No. (JBOD is available only for volumes consisting of one disk) |
| 2 | RAID 1 | No. (Volume protection is already redundant.) |
| 2 or more | RAID 0 | No. (RAID 0 does not offer protection) |
| 3 or more | RAID 5 | Yes. (Additional disk provides dual redundancy and converts the volume to RAID 6.) |
| 4 or more (even number) | RAID 10 | No. (Volume protection is already redundant.) |
| 4 or more | RAID 6 | No. (Voume is already protected with dual redundancy.) |
For more information on changing RAID levels, see the How do I change to a different RAID level on my ReadyNAS OS 6 storage system?
Last Updated:07/07/2025
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Article ID: 22808