Intel announced the cancellation of the VROC technology, then changes course
Intel unexpectedly issued a product change notice on January 6, saying that it decided to stop the VROC technology. The final order date is January 23 and the delivery date is March 31. This feature debuted in 2017 to simplify and reduce the cost of high-performance storage arrays and is popular in data centers. The just-released fourth-generation Xeon scalable processor Sapphire Rapids can support it, and it also appeared on the X299 platform in the past, used with Skylake-X and its own SSD.
According to TomsHardware, Intel has sent a statement refuting the previous decision: “The PCN was prematurely posted while the decision was under evaluation. After discussing with the ecosystem and customers we realize there is significant demand for this product and intend to continue to support it.”
The VROC technology requires the purchase of special key hardware inserted into the motherboard, the key provides different levels of RAID support, the price is between $100 and $250, and the RAID can be configured without installing a third-party RAID expansion card.
VROC introduces the NVMe RAID function to the processor to form SSD storage devices, which brings advantages in performance, redundancy, bootability, manageability, and maintainability, which were previously only available through additional devices (such as RAID expansion cards) to achieve. VROC provides users with many high-performance storage functions without increasing the cost of purchasing other components while reducing power consumption, heat generation, complexity, and wiring difficulty.
It is a little doubtful that because the VROC technology needs to work with Intel’s storage products, and Intel has sold the storage business to SK Hynix and ended the Optane business at the same time, it is still unclear how Intel’s VROC technology will develop in the future. But in either case, customers and OEMs don’t need to worry, after all, Intel has decided to continue to support the VROC technology.
