Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) Operating Systems Support List
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.
The supported operating systems by Intel® VROC are shown in the following tables. Keep in mind the following considerations while navigating through the supported operating systems list below.
| What you should know about the Intel® VROC supported operating systems |
|
Windows* Operating Systems
Intel® VROC for Windows* is delivered through a separate software download. Refer to your platform provider download resources for access. For details about platforms and chipsets, refer to Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) Platforms and Chipsets Support List.
- For Windows 7*, Intel® VROC 5.6 was the last version that supported this operating system. The Intel® VROC 5.6 package for Windows 7 is delivered through the Intel® VROC 6.x installer, but the build is in sustaining mode. As of Intel® VROC 7.5 release, this Windows 7 driver is no longer included.
- For Windows* 10, the supported builds are RS4, RS5, 19H1, 19H2, 20H1, 20H2, 21H1, 21H2, 22H2, 21H2. Windows* 10 RS5 introduces/includes WinPE support.
- For Windows Server* 2012 R2, Intel® VROC 8.2 was the last version that supported this operating system. Intel® VROC 8.5 and subsequent driver versions do not support Windows Server 2012 R2. Although Microsoft* announced the operating system has reached its end of life, Microsoft* still allows the purchase of Extended Security Updates (ESU) until 2026.
Intel® Chipset Family Matrix
| Operating System | Intel® C220/C230/C240 series chipset based platforms | Intel® C610/C620/C741 series chipset based platforms |
| Windows® 10 | Yes | Yes |
| Windows 11* | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server* 2012 R2 | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2016 | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2019 | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2022 | Yes | Yes |
| Windows* Server 2025 | Yes | Yes |
Intel® Xeon® Processors Family Matrix
| Operating System | Intel® Xeon® Processors Family | ||||
| Intel® Xeon® W Processors | Intel® Xeon® E Processors1 | Intel® Xeon® D Processors | Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors | ||
| 1st Gen - 4th Gen | 5th Gen - 6th Gen | ||||
| Windows® 10 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Windows 11* | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Windows Server* 2012 R2 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Windows Server 2016 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2019 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2022 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2025 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
1 Intel® Xeon® E processors support only Intel® VROC (SATA RAID). Support for Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID) is not available.
Linux* Operating Systems
Intel® VROC for Linux* is mostly delivered through open-source operating system kernel and user space tools, with no additional software download required for specific Linux* distribution releases. It is up to the specific operating system vendor to pull-in Intel® VROC features and patches. The distributions below have Intel® VROC support, with newer releases being more complete.
In the list below, keep in mind the below considerations:
- Out-Box: An updated driver/utility package with bug fixes or enhancements from Intel is available. Refer to your platform provider download resources for access.
- In-Box: Use native drivers and utilities in the Linux* distribution GA/GM version, without any additional updated package from Intel.
| Operating System | Intel® Xeon® Processor Generation | |||||
| 1st Gen | 2nd Gen | 3rd Gen | 4th Gen | 5th Gen | 6th Gen | |
| RHEL* 7.3 & 7.4 | Out-Box | Out-Box | No | No | No | No |
| RHEL 7.5 | In-Box | In-Box | No | No | No | No |
| RHEL 7.8, 7.9 & 8.1 | No | No | Out-Box | No | No | No |
| RHEL 8.2 | No | No | In-Box | Out-Box | Out-Box | No |
| RHEL 8.3, 8.4 & 8.5 | No | No | No | Out-Box | Out-Box | No |
| RHEL 8.6 & 8.7 | No | No | No | In-Box | In-Box | No |
| RHEL 8.8 | No | No | No | In-Box | In-Box | No |
| RHEL 8.9 | No | No | No | In-Box | In-Box | No |
| RHEL 9.0 & 9.1 | No | No | No | In-Box | In-Box | No |
| RHEL 9.2 | No | No | No | In-Box | In-Box | Out-Box |
| RHEL 9.3 | No | No | No | In-Box | In-Box | No |
| RHEL 9.4 | No | No | No | No | No | Out-Box |
| SLES* 12 SP3 & SP4 | In-Box | In-Box | No | No | No | No |
| SLES 12 SP5 | In-Box | In-Box | Out-Box | No | No | No |
| SLES 15 & 15 SP1 | In-Box | In-Box | No | No | No | No |
| SLES 15 SP2 | In-Box | In-Box | In-Box | Out-Box | Out-Box | No |
| SLES 15 SP3 | No | No | No | Out-Box | Out-Box | No |
| SLES 15 SP4 | No | No | No | In-Box | In-Box | No |
| SLES 15 SP5 | No | No | No | In-Box | In-Box | Out-Box |
| SLES 15 SP6 | No | No | No | No | No | In-Box |
| Ubuntu* 18.04.3 | In-Box | In-Box | No | No | No | No |
| Ubuntu 18.04.4 | In-Box | In-Box | In-Box | No | No | No |
| Ubuntu 18.04.5 | In-Box | In-Box | No | No | No | No |
| Ubuntu 20.04.0 & 20.04.1 | In-Box | In-Box | In-Box | No | No | No |
| Ubuntu 20.04.3 | No | No | No | Out-Box | Out-Box | No |
| Ubuntu 22.04.3 | No | No | No | In-Box | In-Box | No |
| Ubuntu 24.04 | No | No | No | No | No | In-Box |
- CentOS* is a community supported operating system and Intel® VROC is limited in the support options for these distributions. CentOS* is not a validated distributions for Intel® VROC. If a CentOS* issue can be reproduced using the corresponding RHEL release, then the issue can be addressed.
- For SUSE Linux* Enterprise, Intel® VROC does not support the specific general-public Xeon-Hypervisor virtualization platform.
VMware* ESXi* Operating Systems
The VMware® ecosystem is supported with the same pre-OS driver that is used for Intel® VROC. In the OS/Hypervisor, the Intel® VROC driver for ESXi* is supported and RAID 1 boot and RAID 1 data volumes are supported.
| Operating System | Intel® Xeon® Processor Generation | |||||
| 1st Gen | 2nd Gen | 3rd Gen | 4th Gen | 5th Gen | 6th Gen | |
| ESXi* 7.0 U3 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| ESXi 8.0 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| ESXi 8.0 U1 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| ESXi 8.0 U2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| ESXi 8.0 U3 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ESXi 9.0 | No | No | Planned1 | Planned1 | Planned1 | Planned1 |
1 Awaiting GA release.
- Inbox and async driver options are available for the Intel® VROC driver for ESXi* 7.x and 8.x.
- Inbox driver only is provided for ESXi* 9.0 and later. Async drivers are no longer provided for ESXi* 9.0 and later.
- Refer to the Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) User Guide for VMware* ESXi* for extensive information on the Intel® VROC driver for ESXi*.
| Related topics |
| Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) Supported Configurations |
| User Guides for Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) |
| Resources for Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) |