HP Network Server ?

[Henry Kolesnik]

I see that Office Depot has the HP MediaSmart with 500 gig for $600.00
which seems reasonable. I'd like to network 5 PCs, 3 with Vista and 2
with XP and printer. But in reading some of the reviews I see that HP
doesn't support printers and one has to go through a bunch of steps
which I don't want to take to get a printer. In another review I see
that if you try to use two drives for redundancy it can lose files! But
the complaints were from early this year and maybe MSFT and HPQ have
solved the problem.
So, does anyone have a suggestion for a plug and play server to handle 5
PCs, a printer, and access the Web that's easy to setup and reliable
with over 100 gig on two drives?
Thanks
Hank

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I see that Office Depot has the HP MediaSmart with 500 gig for $600.00
which seems reasonable. I'd like to network 5 PCs, 3 with Vista and 2 with
XP and printer. But in reading some of the reviews I see that HP doesn't
support printers and one has to go through a bunch of steps which I don't
want to take to get a printer. In another review I see that if you try to
use two drives for redundancy it can lose files! But the complaints were
from early this year and maybe MSFT and HPQ have solved the problem.
So, does anyone have a suggestion for a plug and play server to handle 5
PCs, a printer, and access the Web that's easy to setup and reliable with
over 100 gig on two drives?
Thanks
Hank

What exactly do you want the server to do? Simple file and printer
sharing? This is actually pretty easy to set up on a Linux box using
Samba, and is a good use for such systems.

The question about "access the web" is not clear.

As to networking a printer, there are a number of inexpensive lasers that
come with ethernet cards; you just plug them into the router, install the
drivers, and you don't need to set up or run a server.

For example, where I am, the Samsung ML-2851ND laser is around $250. Look
for model numbers with "N". The "D" stands for Duplex, this printer will do
two-sided printing.

In addition, there are a number of small NAS/RAID appliances available now
that can handle pairs of 1Tb drives. The D-Link DNS-323, for example, is
around $150 where I am. Drives are not included! These devices are
getting cheaper all the time, and they don't require things like monitors or
keyboards.

Many do include FTP servers. It is also a good idea to read the reviews
carefully to see if these will work for you.

HTH
-pk