Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) RAID Volume Creation Using the Intel® VROC Graphical User Interface (GUI)

The following information will provide guidance on utilizing the Intel® VROC GUI in the creation of a RAID volume. The system here is assumed to have the full set of drivers installed so that it will reflect the nature of the system drive on SATA in addition to the NVMe* disks that will be employed as a data volume for the example. Only a few examples will be given as the process is extremely similar in each RAID type; it only varies mildly based on the number of disks to be employed.

Creating a Two Drive RAID 0 Data Volume

1. Open the Intel® VROC GUI application.
2. Navigate to the section Create Volume.
3. Select the NVMe* devices controller if not already selected.
4. Select the Optimized disk performance (RAID 0) option.
5. Click Next to continue.

   

6. Select two drives available to be included in the volume.
   • At this point in the process, if there are any significant discrepancies between the drives selected to be RAID members, a warning message will be displayed if one of the following conditions is encountered:
     • There is a combination of SSDs and HDDs used.
     • There are at least two drives that have a size difference of more than 10%.
   • For this example, we are creating a new volume so select the No option in response to the statement regarding adding this volume to an existing array.
   • If the selected drives are on different Intel® Volume Management Device (Intel® VMD) domains or CPUs, check the box that reads Enable VMD controller spanning. This will enable selection of additional drives if they are engaged on the system. This feature can only be used with data volumes; not supported for boot volumes.

     Compatible Drives with RAID Level

     When configuring a RAID volume, Intel® VROC will only reflect drives that are compatible for the RAID type that has been selected. Incompatible drives will not be within the selection values available. You will not be able to force this in the Intel® VROC GUI or in the BIOS environment. Based on the first disk selected or the order of selection, some disks may become grayed out if one or more requirements are not met. Changing the order of selection helps re-enable disks that were grayed out. For example, if the first selection is a system disk, only disks that are of equal or greater size will be presented for selection and others will remain grayed out. For more information on disk requirements, refer to the information available in the section Creating a volume under the Intel® VROC GUI Help option.

7. Click Next to continue.

   

8. To configure the volume, you can first specify the name of the volume. In this example it has been left as default (Volume_0000). For this example, the rest of the options will be kept as default.

   

9. Click Next to continue. You will see a summary of the configuration to be applied.

   

10. Click the Create Volume option to continue.
11. Click OK to continue. This will complete the volume creation process.

    

View Volume Properties

After the RAID volume is created, the Properties pane will refresh to show the current status, properties and available options of the newly created RAID volume.

A notification will be logged in the Notifications page. Formatting and mounting of the volume will still be required just as with any new drive added within a Windows* environment.

Creating a Three Drive RAID 5 Data Volume

1. Open the Intel® VROC GUI application.
2. Navigate to the Create Volume section.
3. Select the NVMe* devices controller if not already selected.
4. Select the Efficient data hosting and protection (RAID 5) option.
5. Click Next to continue.

   

6. Select three drives available to be included in the volume.
   • The system used in this example has direct connections for the NVMe* drives to the board, there are two drives per Intel® VMD controller. The volume has to be spanned across them. Spanning a volume across Intel® VMD domains will show a warning message that reads WARNING: RAID volume spanned across Intel® VMD controllers cannot be used as bootable volume. A RAID volume spanned across Intel® VMD controllers cannot be used as bootable volume. Make sure to check the box to enable Intel® VMD controller spanning to be allowed to select drives from additional controllers.
   • In this example, a warning message appeared indicating that there is a difference in the size of the drives that is greater that 10%. This indicates that there will be unused space on the larger drive. To avoid this scenario, use drives of the same size, if possible, for the new array. Spanning is not a requirement to span across Intel® VMD domains but it is an option.
7. Click Next to continue.

   

8. To configure the volume, you can first specify the name of the volume. In this example it has been left as default (Volume_0001).

   RAID Write Hole (RWH) Closure

   For RAID 5 volumes, the option to enable the RAID Write Hole (RWH) Closure feature is available. This is a mean of allowing for data integrity to be maintained even if a power loss is experienced. It is best selected at the onset of creation of the volume before data is transferred to it. Changing the mode with data existing can put that data at risk. It will allow you to select a drive that has not already been associated to the array as the additional disk member and allow you to select the mode between Distributed and Journaling Drive within the advanced pane during creation of the RAID volume, or at time of addition. It is recommended that if this feature is to be used, it is enabled during the volume creation to prevent risk of data loss. Learn more about the RAID Write Hole (RWH) Closure feature in Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) RAID Write Hole (RWH) Closure.

   

9. Click Next to continue. You will see a summary of the configuration to be applied.

   

10. Click the Create Volume option to continue.
11. Click OK to continue. This will complete the volume creation process. After the creation process completes, the following landing page will be displayed. All volume properties can be viewed there.

    

Viewing RAID Volumes in Windows* Utilities

Intel® VROC RAID volumes created from the Intel® VROC GUI application will become visible within the Windows* utilities as with other drives in the system. Below are some captures that show how the Windows* Device Manager and Disk Management utilities may display the RAID volumes after their creation.