Modular RAID on Motherboard (MROMB

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Current host-based hardware RAID solutions: The most common way to add RAID capability to a server is using a host-based adapter (HBA) RAID card. It is also generally the most expensive approach since it duplicates some components already present on the motherboard, in particular the SCSI I/O components. It is quite flexible, however, because the processing power, software and I/O logic are incorporated on the RAID card.
At the other end of the price spectrum is the ROMB approach. ROMB is an efficient, cost-effective solution that leverages the RAID components that are already built into the motherboard. With the ROMB approach, however, the motherboard manufacturer is burdened with the expense of implementing
the RAID solution on every motherboard produced, the cost of which is passed on to the end-user?even if the user never takes advantage the RAID functionality. The MROMB approach is designed to offer the best of both worlds. A MROMB implementation provides great flexibility in equipping a system with RAID, just as the HBA approach does. By using the onboard SCSI I/O processor built into the motherboard instead of providing a duplicate SCSI I/O
controller, the MROMB solution can be priced closer to that of a ROMB solution.

Read full article:
http://www.intel.com/design/network/papers/25157501.pdf

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ZCR is synonymous with MROMB and stands for "Zero Channel RAID." It refers to the fact that there is no I/O controller (0 channels) located on the RAID card.

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RAIDIOS is a specification used to enable an embedded I/O controller, embedded on the motherboard, to be used as just an I/O controller or to be the I/O component of a hardware RAID subsystem. The RAIDIOS circuit allows an I/O Processor (either embedded on the motherboard or on an add-in card) to configure the I/O controller and service the I/O controller's interrupts. The I/O controller and the I/O Processor together are two of the primary components of a hardware RAID subsystem.

http://www.intel.com/design/support/faq/io_processors/raidios.htm