Intel® Volume Management Device (Intel® VMD) Domain Capabilities for Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC)

The Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) package supports RAID volume management from NVMe* drives connected to a single Intel® Volume Management Device (Intel® VMD) domain or to multiple Intel® VMD domains (known as Intel® VMD spanning).

Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) Volumes on a Single Intel® VMD Domain

Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) allows both Data RAID and Boot System RAID volumes on NVMe* disks connected to a single Intel® VMD domain. These RAID volumes are reported to the operating system as single disk drives connected to the Intel® VMD domain where the RAID volume member disks are connected.

Spanning Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) RAID Data Volumes across Intel® VMD Domains

Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) allows Data RAID volumes on NVMe* Solid-State Drives (SSDs) that span across multiple Intel® VMD domains. Data RAID volume members can reside on different Intel® VMD domains and can be used for storing data. To enable this option, a selection must be made. This selection field can be found in the Intel® VROC Pre-OS environment (HII and UEFI tools), the Intel® VROC Graphical User Interface (GUI) application and the Intel® VROC Command Line Interface (CLI) utility. Note that when this selection is made, a warning message appears to outline the risks of enabling this feature.

Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) does not support installing an operating system onto an Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) RAID volume that spans across Intel® VMD controllers/domains.

Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) on Pass-Thru Boot Drives

Intel® VROC will allow installing to and booting from an operating system on a pass-thru NVMe* SSD drive (not part of a RAID volume) that is behind an enabled Intel® VMD controller.

Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) Spanned RAID Volumes across Intel® VMD Controllers

Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) supports the ability to create an Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) volume that will span Intel® VMD domains. These volumes can be created at any point before or after the user’s system is successfully running Windows* but may not be used as the boot volume. The following instructions will cover the creation of spanned volumes using the BIOS interface.

To create an Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) RAID volume that will span Intel® VMD domains, follow these steps:

1. Enter the BIOS Setup menu to access the Intel® VROC UEFI HII interface. 
2. Navigate to the Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU configuration menu.
3. Select the option Create RAID Volume.
4. Type in a volume name and press Enter. Alternatively, simply press Enter to accept the default name. A unique name for each RAID volume is recommended.
5. Select the RAID level by pressing Enter and using the arrow keys to scroll through the available values. Highlight the desired RAID type and press Enter to set the RAID type. 
6. Ensure that the user's vendor supports spanned RAID volumes. To enable it, toggle the status from the default status OFF to ON.
7. To enable spanned volumes, use the arrow key to highlight the < > bracket and press Enter. This will open a small selection menu. Navigate the cursor to the X and press Enter to enable volume spanning. To disable it, you would set the value back to blank and press Enter to save the value. Keep in mind that only data volumes are supported in this configuration, boot volumes that are spanned are not supported.
8. Using the arrow keys, select the drives one by one by highlighting the < > bracket on the line next to the drive’s port number. Press Enter to open the selection menu, which will be set to blank or off status. Navigate the cursor to the X and press Enter to include that drive within the array. 
   • Repeat this step for each drive required within this array. 
9. Unless the RAID level was selected to RAID 1, select the strip size by using the arrow keys and press Enter to open the options menu. Utilize the arrow keys to select the desired strip size and press Enter to save the value. 
   • RAID 1 is set at the default strip size value of 128k and cannot be modified.
10. Select the volume capacity and press Enter. The default value will be displayed as the maximum capacity available with the drives selected. The value is calculated in bytes, for example a 700GB drive would use the following math: 700 x 1024 = 716000 bytes.
    • Unless specifically selected, the default volume capacity will be 95% of the available space. This is to support disk coercion.
11. Select the option Create Volume. The following message will be shown to the user: You have selected NVMe drives that are connected to multiple Intel® VMD controllers. Note that if the user continues and creates a RAID volume with drives from multiple Intel® VMD controllers that RAID volume will not be bootable in a Windows* OS environment. Press ‘y’ to create, ‘n’ to discard. This message is a warning regarding Windows*. This is a BIOS configuration platform and can be compatible with either Windows Server* or Linux* distributions. However, spanned boot volumes in Windows* are not supported.
12. Press Enter to create the RAID volume. This will create the RAID volume using the configuration set in previous steps. The user will then be returned to the Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU configuration menu and the newly created RAID volume will be listed just below the header Intel® VROC Managed Volumes. Other drives or unused portions of drives will be listed under the header Non-RAID Physical Disks. These may be used to create additional RAID volumes. If there are insufficient disks or space on the other disks to create an additional RAID volume, the user may receive an error when creating secondary volumes.
    • When creating the volume, 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%.
13. Press the ESC key to exit. Press ESC again, the following message will be shown: Changes have not saved. Save changes and exit? Press ‘Y’ to save and exit, ‘N’ to discard and exit, ‘ESC’ to cancel”. Press the Y key to save and exit. Not saving at this time will discard the changes made, including all changes and configuration settings for the RAID volume.
14. To save and reboot, press the ESC key to return to the main menu. Select the option Reset to reboot the system back to the boot menu.