The present invention is a system for and method of providing a flexible means of using and storing file configuration metadata in a RAID network, so that the memory system does not restrict the metadata to exact format or location in memory. A RAID controller includes software applications, an operating system, and RAID controller hardware. The software applications of the RAID controller include a graphical user interface, a common information module object manager, a software application layer, a logic library layer, a system manager, a software watchdog, a persistent data manager, an event manager, and a battery backup. The operating system includes a kernel and a file system. The method of the present invention includes the steps of powering up the memory device, determining whether the memory device is new and, optionally, building a file system and, optionally, determining appropriate configuration, communicating configuration data to the RAID controller, operating normally, determining whether a configuration update is needed and, optionally, updating the configuration file of the memory device, and determining whether to shut down the RAID controller.