What SCSI card can I use to add legacy SCSI drives to my Asus P8Z77-v Pro motherboard?

[FOF]

Hello,

Have a bunch of legacy SCSI storage devices including Quantum Cartridge drives and Iomega Zip drives that I would like to connect to my current PC, which is a custom build based around the Asus P8Z77-V Pro. The board has seven PCI slots. I can make any slot from 3 through 6 available for a SCSI interface board.

Slot 1	PCI Express 2.0 x1
Slot 2	PCI Express 3.0 x16
Slot 3	PCI Express 2.0 x1
Slot 4	PCI
Slot 5	PCI Express 3.0 x16
Slot 6	PCI
Slot 7	PCI Express 2.0 x4 in a x16 size

The SCSI boards I have been looking at are the Adaptec 1822300 64-bit PCI SCSI Controller Card or the Intel SRCU42E PCI Express SCSI Controller Card. The problem is, I don't know if these boards will work or are compatible with my Asus motherboard. Will they work? Are there other, better, boards that will work?

I am using Windows 7 professional 64 bit. It's all tuned up and operating properly, thanks to PeterJ. I'd just like to remount some of my SCSI storage devices to try to recover about 10 years worth of photos, audio, and film from my older projects.

Any advice?

Regards,

Rod

 

[xrobwx71]

@Digerati Is the expert on this kind of stuff. Standby.

 

[FOF]

Thanks. I am in no big rush. It has taken me two years just to get to the point where I am ready to tackle the issue!

Along with it, I am also having difficulty determining if a SCSI raid card or a SCSI controller (non-raid) are both compatible options. It's really easy to end up in the weeds very quickly.

 

[FOF]

So, I have worked through a solution and thought I would share the result in case it may help someone else who needs to connect an old SCSI disk drive, zip drive, Jaz drive, tape drive, or film scanner to a more modern pc with PCI slots running windows 10 or windows 7. Or maybe someone will point out that I made a big mistake! I hope not.

I ended up selecting a 2250300-R Adaptec 29320LPE 1-Port Storage Controller Ultra320 PCIe X1 RoHS. It is not the cheapest unit I could get that might work. But prices on it have been steadily rising over the past few months. So I decided to get it for several reasons noted and documented below.

1. I don't think the 29320LPE is the only controller that will work but it certainly is a well-documented solution. For example, Adaptec has the following table which defines which of its cards will work in what type of PCI slot https://ask.adaptec.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1903/~/what-type-of-pci-slot-can-an-adaptec-controller-use%3F. This made it easy to identify the Adaptec controllers that were best suited to my machine. The 29320LPE is at the top of the list.

2. From another link, I was able to identify which of the possible SCSI controllers had drivers for Windows 7 or Windows 10. https://storage.microsemi.com/en-us/support/scsi/. From this link, I was able to identify and download Windows 7 drivers that support the 29320LPE controller.

3. Another document that helped me to understand what PCI slots could be used with which cards is this link: https://serverfault.com/questions/11633/whats-the-bandwidth-and-form-factor-for-pcie-x1-x4-x8-and-x16. It is the first time I actually understood what the PCI slot designations meant and the implications for throughput was explained.

4. Of course, there remains one last hurdle that I will need to overcome after I install the controller. Many of the devices I have, use different connectors. So I may need several different adapters (some I have from over the many years I used SCSI drives going back to ISA and EISA busses). I think this may be the best place to get those adapters: https://lextec.com/product-category/cables-audio-video-computer/computer-cables/scsi.

Anyway, this is what I did and why. Hopefully, the results will be helpful to someone else.

 

[xrobwx71]

Thanks so much for taking the time to post.

 

[FOF]

Just a quick update. I received the 29320LPE SCSI card yesterday and installed it today. It took about 15 minutes to do it and the drivers installed automatically, so I didn't even need to use the Windows 7 Drivers I downloaded. I installed it in slot 7, a PCI Express 2.0 x4 x16. I have been able to connect a Zip drive with no problem. I also have a SCSI 1 adapter that is going to let me connect my Quantum DTS drive. Can't wait to get all the materials from these old storage mediums.