Is it normal for initialization to occur when new?

I purchased mine a couple of days ago and it has been working on initializing ever since.  Should it be doing this out of the box?  It does not seem normal for it to do this unless it is rebuilding.  Dashboard is slow and so are file transfers due to “initialization”.  I called tech support and they said that it is the initial formatting of the raid 5.  I thought that that is done in the factory to raid 5.  I did have a server update running out of the box-Microsoft push.  Maybe there was an abrupt shutdown and that is why it is rebuilding?

I am getting another unit in a couple of days and if that one does it as well, then it is the way it was designed.