Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) RAID Management Capabilities for Windows*
Content Type: Product Information & Documentation | Article ID: 000101203 | Last Reviewed: 07/18/2025
The following information outlines the RAID management features and functionality supported by Intel® VROC, including the Intel® VROC sub-products: Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID), Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) and Intel® VROC (Non-VMD NVMe* RAID). To learn about specific features supported by each Intel® VROC sub-product, refer to the following resources:
| Intel® VROC Features | RAID management is one of the features of the Intel® VROC family of products. To learn about other features of Intel® VROC, refer to the Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) Technical Product Specification for Windows*. |
The Intel® VROC family of products supports the RAID levels 0, 1, 5 and 10. Find more details about the supported Intel® VROC RAID levels in the Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) RAID Levels Support List.
The Intel® VROC family of products supports up to two logical RAID volumes on the same array. A RAID array simply refers to the set of disk drives that can be formed into a RAID volume. A RAID array can be created with a minimum of two drives.
When the second RAID volume is created, the creation process will automatically use all the remaining available space.
When utilizing a Matrix RAID configuration, avoid mixing a non-redundant RAID volumes (RAID 0) with redundant RAID volumes (RAID 1/5/10). Any failed disk will fail the RAID 0 volume and may result in the array not functioning properly.
Learn how to create a Matrix RAID configuration in Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) Matrix RAID Configuration Using the Intel® VROC Graphical User Interface (GUI).
The Intel® VROC family of products supports the creation of RAID volumes in the following different ways:
| RAID Volume Naming Rules | Starting with Intel® VROC 8.5, volume names must conform to the below character set in all operating environments:
Additionally, the hyphen ( - ) character cannot be the first character of any volume name. If the user tries to create a volume using invalid characters, the operation will be blocked by Intel® VROC and a message will be displayed indicating which characters from the desired name are not compliant. Volumes created before Intel® VROC 8.5 will not be affected by this change, even if they contain illegal characters in their name. |
The Intel® VROC configuration UEFI tools and Intel® VROC CLI utility can be used to create RAID volumes as follows.
Run the Rcfgxxxx.efi tool from a USB key in an EFI shell environment or run the Intel® VROC CLI tool (IntelVROCCli.exe) in a Windows* based environment with the following command line flags to create a RAID volume. The following command line will instruct the utility to create a RAID 0 volume named OEMRAID0 on drives attached to the SATA controller (controller #0) on port 0 and 1 with a strip size of 128 KB and a size of 120 GB:
Selecting the strip size is only applicable for RAID 0, RAID 5, and RAID 10 levels. Strip size is not applicable for RAID 1.
The following command will create a RAID volume using all the default values. It will create a RAID 0 volume with a strip size of 128 KB on the two drives in the system connected to the SATA controller (configured to boot in legacy mode). The volume will be the maximum size allowable:
The above command requires that only two disks are attached to the system.
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:
The following command will display usage help for all support command line parameters:
Review the process of RAID volume creation using the Intel® VROC GUI application in Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) RAID Volume Creation Using the Intel® VROC Graphical User Interface (GUI).
| Note | In the case where the RAID volume consists of Hard Drives (HD) or Hard Disk Drives (HDD), both Disk Data Cache and Volume Write-Back Cache can be enabled to speed up data access, especially during RAID volume rebuilding. For details about Disk Data Cache and Volume Write-Back Cache, refer to Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) Array Management Capabilities in Windows*. |
The Intel® VROC family of products supports a newly created volume to be used immediately (no reboot required), protecting newly written data, and creating parity data concurrently. Learn more about the Intel® VROC RAID volume initialization process in Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) RAID Volume Initialization.
RAID volumes can be deleted in three different ways. The method most widely used by end-users is by using the Intel® VROC GUI application. The second method is to use the Intel® VROC Pre-OS environment (UEFI HII) user interface. The third way, used by platform manufacturers only, uses the Intel® VROC CLI utility.
When a volume is deleted, the user creates available space that can be used to create new volumes. Note that the user cannot delete a system volume using this application because the operating system needs the system files to run correctly.
| Warning | When a volume is deleted, any existing data on all disks that are part of the selected volume will be permanently lost. We recommend backing up all valuable data before continuing. |
Review the process of RAID volume deletion using the Intel® VROC GUI application in Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) RAID Volume Deletion Using the Intel® VROC Graphical User Interface (GUI).
This method depends on the available options in the platform BIOS. Where and how the platform manufacturer chooses to implement the UEFI HII interface is based on the manufacturer preference. Use the following example from an Intel® Customer Reference Board (CRB).
Use the Intel® VROC CLI tool (IntelVROCCli.exe) in a Windows* based environment with the following command line flags to delete a RAID volume. The following command line will instruct the utility to delete a RAID 0 volume named OEMRAID0 on drives attached to the SATA ports:
The Intel® VROC family of products will report RAID volumes as degraded when:
For troubleshooting tips to recover degraded volumes, refer to Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) Troubleshooting Tips for Degraded Volumes in Windows* Environments.