Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) SKUs and Licensing

Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) is an enterprise RAID solution that unleashes the performance of NVMe* SSDs. Intel® VROC is enabled by a feature in Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors called Intel® Volume Management Device (Intel® VMD), an integrated controller inside the CPU PCIe root complex. NVMe SSDs are directly connected to the CPU, allowing the full performance potential of fast storage devices to be realized. Intel® VROC enables these benefits without the complexity, cost, and power consumption of traditional hardware RAID host bus adapter (HBA) cards placed between the drives and the CPU.

Intel® VROC supports the below feature sets (SKUs) that requires a licensing mechanism to activate.

Intel® VROC SKUs

Intel® VROC offers basic functionality included with PCH. Option to add three RAID enabled feature sets (Standard, Premium, RAID1 Only).

** RAID1 Only SKU is available starting with 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors via Intel® On Demand only.

Intel® VROC Licensing

Two licensing options are offered as mechanisms to acquire Intel® VROC licenses:

Intel® VROC Hardware Key

Hardware key inserted into a motherboard header to enable the desired Intel® VROC feature set.

Intel® On Demand

Intel® On Demand activation model is a solution managed primarily by hardware providers to enable license-based activation of selected CPU features and software throughout Intel® Xeon® CPU lifecycle. Depending on the hardware provider, licenses can be purchased to enable Intel® VROC (available with 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors) during manufacturing or in field as an upgrade.