Good Print Server

[Andrew Chalk]

Can anyone recommend a good SOHO print server? I have an 'Airlink' unit that
'jams' almost daily. I have to remove and reinstall printers on my hosts in
order to get it to work again. It appears the print server cannot handle
errors and this causes Windows XP, particularly, to get into a state where
nothing else can be printed.

Many thanks.

 

[V Green]

Dust off that old PC sitting in the closet, install W98 on it,
network it, hang printers off it.

This has been my choice for years for a
proxy/print server for both my office and home networks.

Absolutely none of the type of problems you are having,
plus a big hard disk to spool print jobs to.

If you have hardware capable of running it, go to
W2K instead of W98.

I choose to run 98 as this machine is my "presence"
on the Internet, and as such, almost all the Internet viruses
just pass it right by...(firewall and CA AV in place too for the
downstream clients).

 

[Andrew Chalk]

I considered that and may still go to it, but space and driver issues make a
standalone hub more desirable.

Thanks,

Andrew

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

Can anyone recommend a good SOHO print server? I have an 'Airlink' unit that
'jams' almost daily. I have to remove and reinstall printers on my hosts in
order to get it to work again. It appears the print server cannot handle
errors and this causes Windows XP, particularly, to get into a state where
nothing else can be printed.

Many thanks.

We are using a HP print server over our WAN and have no problems with
it, even after the WAN goes down. We tried a Linksys one but could not
get it to work reliably over the WAN.

 

[GTS]

I've installed quite a few HP and DLink print servers - no problems with
either.
I find it odd that you should have to remove and reinstall printers on the
hosts this way. Is the print server properly configured with a static IP
address?

 

[Yves Leclerc]

Most "any" HP JetDirect external units seem to be extremely stable and seems
to support most operating systems (WIndows, Linux, Apple and SCO.)

 

[Andrew Chalk]

Yes. The Airlink just seems flaky. The absence of clear instructions should
have been my tip off!

- Andrew

 

[Andrew Chalk]

Thanks. To you, GTS and Yves. I'll check out HP and DLink.

- Andrew

 

[Andrew Chalk]

FYI: I bought a Hawking server ad all of the reliability problems appear to
have gone.

- Andrew