Difference Between Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) and Other RAID Management Solutions

Documentation

Product Comparison

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03/31/2023

Difference with Microsoft Storage Spaces*

Intel VROC supports the following features that Microsoft Storage Spaces* does not:

  • Bootable RAID
  • Linux* Support
  • RAID Management in pre-OS environment
  • Support LED Status indicator on SSDs in RAID arrays

Difference with Linux MD RAID

Intel VROC for Linux is built upon MD RAID, and Intel VROC team has an MD RAID maintainer on the team. However, Intel VROC has the following extra features:

  • Provides UEFI HII and UEFI Shell command line RAID management
  • Provides webpage based, remote RAID management and RESTful APIs
  • Fully validated and supported with Purley platform and industry-select SSDs
  • Provides hotfix/patch to specific customer issue on supported OS
  • Provides a bootable NVMe* RAID solution
Note

The Intel VROC development team adds features and functionality to Intel VROC and then upstreams those changes to the Linux kernel. A specific Linux distribution’s kernel version, release schedule, and decision to include any Intel VROC changes will impact the availability of Intel VROC in that distribution. As general guidance, a certain level of Intel® Volume Management Device (Intel® VMD) and Intel VROC code needs to be in the Linux kernel used in order for Intel VROC to be functional. The initial code changes for this functionality were around kernels 4.8/4.10 and limited functionality can be expected. However, for a stable and fully functional base, it is recommended to use kernel 4.15 or above.