VROC with 16x SSD's x299

[LAlli]

Hi,

I Would like to know if this configuration can boot 16x intel 600p ssd's as (RAID 10)

I have seen 8x Intel 600p ssd's works on Raid 0 on standard VROC Installed in video link below, however I will buy VROCISSDMOD suggestion given by Intel forum avoid any problem.

I have 2 options in my mind.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3199104/storage/intels-core-i9-and-x299-enable-crazy-raid-configurations-for-a-price.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/3199104/storage/intels-core-i9-and-x299-enable-crazy-raid-configurations-for-a-price.html

Option 1

Operation system windows 2012 server r2 or windows 10

1x Motherboard : ASUS ROG RAMPAGE VI EXTREME (or any other intel mainboard and cpu supports 64 pcie lanes)

1x CPU: Intel I9 7960

4x ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 x Interface Card PCI Express 3.0

16x Intel 600p 256gb nvme SSD SSDPEKKF256G7L

1x VROC VROCISSDMOD

8x CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 4GB DDR4 DRAM DIMM 4133MHz Unbuffered 19-25-25-4

Option 2

(more likely will not work on RAID 10 due to compatible issues with 760p intel ssd's)

Operation system windows 2012 server r2 or windows 10

1x Supermicro X11DPi-N Intel Xeon Scalable Processors. Dual Socket P (LGA 3647) supported

2x CPU Intel Xeon Silver 4110 Processor

4x ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 x Interface Card PCI Express 3.0

16x Intel 760px 256gb SSD SSDPEKKW256G8XT or 600p ssd's

1x VROC VROCISSDMOD

1x Crucial CT32G4LFD4266 32GB DDR4-2666 LRDIMM 32GB DDR4 2666MHz ECC memory

Thank you.

[idata]

Hello danone,

Thanks for contacting the Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) support forum; in regards to your questions, actually Intel® VROC supports only Intel® SSDs for Data Center and Professional, with NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express), the drives you've mentioned (600p and 760p) aren't supported to be used on VROC RAID arrays since they're Consumer products.You can take advantage of our Ark Website to check our available Data Center and Professional SSDs and their characteristics by following this link:http://https://ark.intel.com/# @SolidStateDrives https://ark.intel.com/# @SolidStateDrivesIn order to create a bootable VROC Array you'll need to create the RAID volume into a single VMD Controller, like for example in the photo that you've shared you can notice that there's 2 different VMD Controllers (VMD0 and VMD1), so in this case they're each one a separate bootable volume. Also about the current configuration that you're mentioning (ASUS* ROG RAMPAGE VI EXTREME w/ https://ark.intel.com/products/126697/Intel-Core-i9-7960X-X-series-Processor-22M-Cache-up-to-4_20-GHz Intel® Core™ i9-7960X X-series Processor) the maximum numbers of PCIe Lanes it's 44, giving a maximum of 11 PCIe x4 NVMe Drives, to use more than 44 Lanes you'll need to use a Xeon-based platform; we strongly recommend you to check for available equipment and recommendations with our Authorized Distributors, you can find the list available here: http://https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/partner/where-to-buy/overview.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/partner/where-to-buy/overview.htmlIn regards to the Intel VROC HW Key it's required to use RAID 0/1/5/10 for most SSDs. However, Intel VROC is also designed to provide RAID0 for Intel PCIe Gen3 x8 SSDs without requiring HW key. For instance: Intel DC P3708. For any other regular x4 SSDs, without HW key, RAID0 might work, might not work. In short, an Intel VROC HW Key is required for official support for RAID0 with regular PCIe Gen3 x4 SSDs. Operating RAID0 in this situation is done at the risk of the user.We hope you find this information useful for your situation and please remember that if you require more assistance or want to add additional details, we'll be glad to assist youBest regards,Chris

[idata]

Hello danone,

Thanks for your time and we're sending you this message as a follow-up to your question and to see if the information that we've provided you was useful for your situation. Also, please remember that if you require more assistance, want to add additional details, or if all your questions have been solved you can also ask us to mark this question as solved; we'll be glad to assist you.Best regards,Chris

[LAlli]

Hi Chris,

Thank you I will test this week and will ask you if I have more questions

thanks.

[LAlli]

Hi Chris,

I would like to ask you couple of questions if you can answer.

1) I tried x99 board I9 cpu VROCISSDMOD intel m.2's. specs are 2x 16xpci-e m.2 total 8x m.2 (4 vmd0) (4 vmd1) and 1xpci-e 8x 2x m.2 (2 vmd3) which makes 10x m.2 drives total work together by vroc system. It does recognise them all in bios. I first tried raid 0 with 10 of them I get roughly 12K speed I also tried 8 of them on raid 0 surprisingly again got same speed which is 12K. Last 2x m.2 doesn't count in terms of speed but space. Is there any hardware or cpu limitation on VROC? each 10x m.2 connects to cpu by 8gb/s checked in Intel enterprise manager.

2) Why Intel raid 10 only support 4 drives? I can create two separate raid 10 drives for each VM. I can't also create 8x raid 10 or 16x I only allow to use raid5(redundant) more than 4 drives which performance not excepted generally around 7K marks.

3) Does Intel want to extend raid levels to 6 ?

4) I successfully build bootable RAID 0 across 3 VMDS. Why Intel insist to say "Multiple VMD controller that RAID volume will not be bootable in a windows OS enviroment". Infact I did it.

Thanks and regards

[idata]

Hello danone,

Your questions have been escalated to a higher level support.To answer with the available information to your questions: 2) RAID5 is recommended for configurations with more than 4 SSDs to achieve a higher capacity and performance. 3)Intel currently has no plans to include RAID6 configuration support in Intel® VROC.4) The solution you are using for the bootable RAID0 across 3 VMDS has not been tested or validated to work with our SSDs, Thanks for your feedback that this is possible, however Intel will not encourage customers to try solutions that have not been tested or validated by us. Hope this information helps. Best Regards, Juan N.

[LAlli]

Hi Juan,

Thanks for your answers I want to ask and comment some issues regarding question 3I have some serious though about VROC. Did you know that Raid 5 write speed VROC is extremely low? Read 7000mb/s when write is only 300mb/s (Joournaling). (8x intel m.2) Without Journaling distribute write speed is 1500mb/s. Intel Raid5 Journaling Patent is completely joke alone I don't even mentioned write speed without Journaling completely unacceptable. You should consider to fire whoever implement this and you already paid thousands of dollars patenting Journaling something nobody is going to use unbelievable. Do you think with this way people are going to use Raid 5 especially for businesses ? if you think yes you are in denial. You should not only add Raid 6 you should also enable Raid 100 Raid 50 Raid 60 then people think about using Intel VROC RAID otherwise it will not help anyone.

Now I have another problem thanks to Intel engineers. Intel enterprise rapid storage software doesn't have mail authentication woow seriously? I understand it might not make much difference when it comes to personal use I am asking INTEL becuase I think it should be before VROC and after VROC. I guess VROC more company corporate product rather personal, How do you except a corporate to install additional SMTP server on the same machine where RSTE is installed ? What I need to do now is instead of clicking smtp authentication to use company SMTP server, I have to install windows 2012 smtp server and configure it to work.

Thanks

[JosafathB_Intel]

Hello LAlli,

Thank you for your patience.

Let me add to my partner answer the following article  I think will clarify a little more regarding the Intel® VROC performance:

 https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000032376/memory-and-storage/ssd-software.html this article provides RAID performance analysis of Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) on Windows* and Linux*.

This white paper provides an analysis of RAID performance and describes:

·        The mathematics behind RAID performance

·        The specific RAID implementations of Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC)

·        How operating systems, storage devices, and other components impact performance output.

We hope you find this information helpful.

Best regards,

Josh B.

Intel® Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[JosafathB_Intel]

Hello LAlli,

Thank you for contacting Intel® Memory & Storage Support. 

This is just a friendly reminder that your case remains open.

Should you need our technical assistance please do not hesitate to contact us back. 

Best regards,

Josh B.

Intel® Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation