EDIT: I completely didn't see your request for PCI. I must be going blind!

I'm not sure what the best controller is (Most Adaptec-made are very good), but I always used a SoundBlaster 16 SCSI II to save a slot. It has an on-board Adaptec SCSI controller. If you have a SCSI hard drive, I'd get a dedicated SCSI controller. I remember a lot of people buying that card to have their "all in one" media machine. I can't remember if there were any problems with it. Anyone else want to chime in ?

Probably something like the Adaptec AVA-2904. It has a single internal 50-pin connector and an external one. It's good up to 10MB/s so it's more than enough for any CD-ROM you throw at it. It should be pretty cheap as well. If you find a AHA-2940 for the same price go for that one instead since it will be more future proof given that it supports faster transfer rates. It may come in handy if you want to use it with HDDs. Also, I'm almost certain the AVA doesn't support booting from it, if that is important to you.

I tend to stay away from sound card IDE/SCSI controllers myself, so I can't comment on that one.

I would say Adaptec, too. But I would definitely say you need to prefer 2940 and don't bother with 2904. I'm sure "bootability" is a good thing with CD-ROM dirves.

For performance it does not really matter that much. With HDDs it is a little different. Some PCI controllers also eat up some RAM. Adaptec do not as far as I recall.

The Sound Blaster 16 SCSI cards (CT1770/CT1779) are 16BIT ISA and not PCI BTW.

2940, should be able to pick up a 2nd hand one fairly easy for little cash too.

Is this what I need? Adaptec AHA-2940UW

It's the UW model and it stands for Ultra Wide. What does it mean?

Dreamer_of_the_past wrote:

Is this what I need? Adaptec AHA-2940UW

It's the UW model and it stands for Ultra Wide. What does it mean?

You should be able to use that. I've got one of those, and it's got both the regular Fast SCSI-2 50-pin connector, and the higher bandwidth "Wide" 68-pin connector. The "Ultra" is just the name of the faster SCSI standard.

It's one of the standards; for a CD-ROM you'll not need it but if the card is cheap enough then it's not something to worry about.

I had that exact card for many years. CD-ROM on the internal 50 pin connector and hard disks on the 68 pin high density connector.

Pleas note that SCSI cables have a number of positions (not limited like ATA, and single like SATA) and have to be terminated in order to work (Card - CD - Terminator). The terminator is usually a resistor pack that you slot on to the device though you can have connector terminators too. From memory I think the 2940 boxed model comes from both cables and terminators so you should be OK with that.

I ran multiple CD Burners off of an Adaptec AHA-2920C PCI card. Its basically a 2940UW minus the wide SCSI ports. Had one internal 50-pin connector and one external HDI-50 connector (commonly called the "SCSI-2" plug). Nice simple card that used AIC-78XX series ASPI drivers and was fully bootable from CD-ROMs and removable devices like Zip drives.

I've never heard of the AHA 2920C. But I do recall the regular AHA 2920 was actually not an adaptec card at all, but a rebadged Future Domain card (which apparently had some compatibility issues too). The 2920C sounds just like the 2930 I had (also a stripped down 2940).

I like the AHA 2940UW myself. It's also the last adaptec SCSI card to have proper driver support under Windows 3.1 (if that matters to you). I also have an AHA 2940U2W, and it doesn't have 32-bit drivers for Windows 3.1 so the performance is really bad.