Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) Package Updates and Compatibility

The Intel® VROC family of products supports upgrading to new release packages. Each Intel® VROC release package contains the Pre-OS components, the operating system drivers, the product installation application, and tools. Intel recommends that all Intel® VROC components installed on the supported platform are upgraded to the latest version of the product. When performing a package update, it is important to follow the recommended upgrade order:

1. Upgrade the Intel® VROC operating system driver package first.
2. Upgrade the platform BIOS with the corresponding Intel® VROC Pre-OS image second.

It is more challenging to update the platform BIOS than it is to update the operating system drivers and tools. The Intel® VROC operating system drivers and tools are designed to be backwards compatible with older Intel® VROC Pre-OS images (unless otherwise outlined in the release notes). The Intel® VROC Pre-OS image is not backwards compatible with the older versions of the Intel® VROC operating system drivers. The reason for this is because there is information passed from the Intel® VROC Pre-OS environment to the Intel® VROC operating system driver. The Intel® VROC operating system driver relies on this information to function properly. If this information happens to change (as part of a bug fix or feature enhancement), an older Intel® VROC operating system driver may not initialize properly, not function, and could lead to a system failure.

Intel® VROC Package Upgrade

The Intel® VROC package upgrade is the process of transitioning to the latest/newest version of the Intel® VROC Pre-OS and/or Intel® VROC operating system components. The table below shows the compatibility matrix outline between the Intel® VROC operating system driver component and the Intel® VROC Pre-OS environment.

Intel® VROC operating system backwards compatibility to Intel® VROC Pre-OS is supported to N-3 versions. Validation will be on N-1 version. 

Supported (as used in the above table) means that issues will be accepted and processed with all other supported configurations.

Intel® VROC Package Downgrade

The Intel® VROC package downgrade is the process of transitioning to an older version of the Intel® VROC Pre-OS and/or Intel® VROC operating system components. Intel does not recommend downgrading as a general practice. However, there may be certain cases where it may be required. If it is deemed necessary to downgrade, the following order should be followed:

1. Update/downgrade to the platform BIOS with a supported Intel® VROC Pre-OS image first (such as downgrade from a platform BIOS with Intel® VROC Pre-OS 7.5 to a platform BIOS with Intel® VROC Pre-OS 7.0).
2. Update/downgrade the Intel® VROC operating system driver package to the desired package (such as downgrade from Intel® VROC 7.5 down to Intel® VROC 7.0).