How to add RAID Controller in VirtualBox

Question

This question might be better suited to server fault, so I apologize in advance if that's the case.

I have created a virtual machine with Oracle's Virtual Box (guest OS Windows 7 x64). On the storage tab in the settings menu, the storage tree window is auto populated with an IDE controller that points to the DVD drive and a SATA controller that points to a VDI disk.

When I run the diskpart command on the host OS it tells me that the disk type is RAID. When I run the same command on the guest OS it tells me that the disk type is SATA.

Is there a way to get the guest OS to see the same controller as the host OS (that being an Intel(R) ICH8M-E/ICH9M-E/5 Series SATA RAID Controller) or at least see the disk type as a RAID disk instead of a SATA disk?

Solution

I don't think VirtualBox can pass-through disk controllers to guests. (the closest thing I could find was a request ticket that hasn't been implemented here for SCSI passthrough)

If you want to do RAID, it would have to be software RAID in the guest OS using multiple VDI disks, though to get any benefit from this each VDI would have to be on a different physical disk.

You could probably go one step further again by using multiple physical disks and raw disk access instead of VDIs, but be aware you can't share raw-accessed disks between guest and host.

Comments

[graf_ignotiev]

No, but close. I want the guest OS to see disks that are identical to the ones of the host's (to the extent that that is realistically possible).

[graf_ignotiev]

Actually, I'm not looking to use RAID for any performance boost, but because I need the guest OS to see a RAID disk. Though if hardware RAID isn't possible, I'm out of luck.

[user1984103]

@graf You're probably out of luck. VMs are great for software testing, but next to useless for hardware testing, and if you need a RAID controller to show up to the guest OS, you're doing hardware testing to some extent.