Intel VROC is a complete RAID solution, including:

• High performance due to direct connect of SSDs
• Platform integrated storage controller functions provided by Intel VMD
• Boot and Data RAID
• Scalable to many devices and RAID arrays
• Support for SATA, Intel VMD NVMe RAID, and non-Intel® VMD NVMe RAID

Intel VROC leverages Intel® VMD enabled PCIe lanes to directly manage NVMe SSDs. The number of VMD Domains on a given CPU is a function of the number of PCIe lanes. For every 16 PCIe lanes, one Intel VMD Domain is available.

• 48 PCIe lanes = 3 Intel® VMD Domains
• 64 PCIe Lanes = 4 Intel® VMD Domains

Supported Configurations

Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU supports several SSD and system configurations. This information covers what the Intel VROC software can support. Platform level constraints may supersede the information below.

OS Support

• CentOS*
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
• Ubuntu
• Windows 10
• Windows Server
• VMware (Intel® VMD and RAID 1 for boot only)

Supported Processors

• Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors (Generation 1, 2 and 3, All SKUs)
• Intel® Xeon® W processors
• Intel® Xeon® D processors
• Intel® Xeon® E (No Intel® VMD. Limited functionality supported)

Maximum SSDs Supported

• Up to 48 NVMe SSDs per platform (may require switches)
• Up to 14 SATA SSDs per Chipset (SATA/sSATA)
• 24 SSDs per RAID 0/5 array
• 4 SSDs per RAID 10 array
• 2 SSDs per RAID 1 array

Intel® VROC Performance Highlights

Intel® VROC is the only RAID solution that scales with the Intel® Optane™ SSD solution to deliver extraordinary performance, over 5.6M IOPS. Intel® VROC performance for all RAID levels is equal or better than RAID HBA, delivering up to 161% more IOPS on RAID 0 and up to 248% more IOPS on RAID 10.

Features

Isolate Error Handling

• Intel® VMD isolates SSD error and event handling from the operating system to help reduce system crashes and reboots.

Enterprise Reliability

• Increased protection from data loss and corruption in various failure scenarios such as unexpected power loss, even when a volume is degraded.

Extended Management Tools

• Pre-OS and OS management includes HII, CLI, email alerts, and a Windows GUI, all supporting NVMe and SATA controls.

Integrated Caching

• Intel® VROC Integrated Caching allows easy addition of a Intel® Optane™ SSD caching layer to accelerate RAID storage arrays.

Boot RAID

• Redundancy for OS images directly off the CPU with pre-OS configuration options for platform set-up.

High Performance Storage

• Connect NVMe SSDs directly to the CPU for full bandwidth storage connections.