With the launch of the Skylake generation of processors and Lewisburg platforms in 2017 Intel introduced a new technology called VROC, short for Virtual RAID on CPU. The main idea with Intel VROC was that it would replace the need for RAID controllers and HBAs in systems that utilized NVMe storage instead of traditional SATA/ SAS. We wanted to make a quick reference guide for VROC keys, similar to what we did for the Intel QuickAssist parts, since this requires a hardware component.

Intel sold the VROC key as a way to build volumes without a traditional SAS/ SATA HBA. Here is Intel’s diagram on how this works: Metal Parts Dealer

In order to have VROC work on a system, the requirements were something like:

There were three hardware keys:

The main differences are that the Standard key does not support RAID 5, but costs $150 less than the Premium. The Intel SSD Only was slightly strange insofar as it only supported Intel SSDs but at a $20 discount to the Premium key. The Premium and Intel Only keys also had Intel VROC Integrated Caching, or VROC IC, that could use Optane SSDs as cache in Linux OSes. Our recommendation is to get the Premium keys if you want RAID 5 and not have to deal with which SSDs one can use. Here is the easy table:

Intel also had the option to enable these features without the hardware key but only for the Premium and Intel SSD Only tiers with VROCPREM (Premium) and VROCISSD (Intel-SSD Only.) If your system did not come with that from the factory, it is likely you need a hardware key.

Hopefully, this will help our readers in the future when they need to find VROC keys. Adding VROC can be challenging since not every server supports VROC. Certain “Swell” OEMs wanted to continue selling proprietary RAID controllers and HBAs and thus did not put the VROC key headers on their motherboards. Still, for many, this is going to be a good option as pre-PCIe Gen5 servers become the lower-cost options. Adding a VROC key saves the cost of a PCIe card and the PCIe slot while lowering power consumption so we can see this becoming very attractive in value servers for the next few years.

My opinion is manufacturers who lock up features on their hardware to monetize market share lose twice: First when the customer refuses to pay the extra money to unlock the extra hardware features and again when their hardware gets a reputation of being slow compared to other manufacturers because those hardware features stayed locked up.

On the other hand, maybe I’m not understanding what a VROC key actually does.

you also have to be carefull because not all slots in server support VMD even if you can put NvME drives in them, intel servers for instance. the M2 slots cant be assigned you have to use the front bays.

the intel server let you get away with more than dell/hp. I have a server here which I test stuff on, it has M2 NvME, SATA internal SATA controller HBA , SAS on raid controller and VROC on different drive sets. At the back of the drives there is SAS/SATA and also occulink assigned to each drive bay.

the really interesting thing you could do if cooling was good, is that you can buy a 2.5 caddy that will fit in a single NvME drive bay that will hold 4 M2 drives, on a 24 bay server, 96 M2 drives. I didnt have acccess to good drives, so have 2 caddys with intel 660P in them and assigned to VMD once I worked out the BIOS seem to be OK. alot like the intel storage manager basically.

what would be really great patrick if on one of your test beds you could do some performance numbers. I would like to see if they match mine , I had some concerns with write performance but that could be the drives as well.

@Tam: Who makes 2.5″ caddies with 4x M.2 Nvme drives?

@Tam (thanks to Arne’s response) Yeah, I’d like to know that as well. Do they use a PCIe switch chip or assign a single PCIe lane to each drive?

Does this work with Linux at all? How does it compare to Linux Software RAID?

Would be interesting to get some VROC performance numbers versus typical hardware RAID. Eg IOPS, sequential, & random RW. VROC is “hybrid”, not software. In other words, there is dedicated hardware for it on CPU, but still means paying a performance penalty. I expect a smaller penalty software RAID, but still. If performance compares well, then there is more backing for “very attractive in value” above.

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