- Network printer: printer server vs direct network connection?
- Posted by alamoaudio@gmail.com on September 18th, 2005
Hi, hope you can help me, i need to install a network printer (Dell
m5200) in a mixed XP/98 environment (about 10-12 workstations). Another
older printer is already shared in the network through an external
print server Dlink dp-300U, connected at its parallel port. I'm
confused whether i should connect the new printer with usb to the Dlink
and then install the printer on each PC as a local printer (with TCP
port) or just directly connecting it to the network and installing as a
network printer on each client.
Thanks in advance for any help
- Posted by Peptide One on September 19th, 2005
alamoaudio@gmail.com wrote the following on 9/18/2005 2:04 PM:
using the D-Link USB print server.
--
Beauty is only epithelial cells deep.
- Posted by Keme on September 19th, 2005
alamoaudio@gmail.com wrote:
Connecting to the network using the builtin NIC is far better (the Dlink
box has USB1.1, with a max throughput of 12 Mb, while the NIC is up to
network speed with 100 Mb).
As far as I can see, the D-link print "server" is not much more than a
network adapter to you. If you have high print volume or your site
grows, I'd recommend installing a dedicated server, though. A bit more
administration, but you'll probably benefit from it in the long run.
Some benefits:
- You install drivers at the server, and then installing the printer on
workstations is a few clicks.
- Queues are spooled (cached) on the server, so your worstation is
quickly freed from the print job.
- Jobs get served in the sequence they're ordered (unless you have
priority queues, another benefit of having a proper server).
- Posted by orlynrules on September 20th, 2005
Thanks guys for your help, I installed the printer today using the
builtin NIC, and seems to work fine on both XP and 98 machines. The
driver had the possibility to automatically deploy drivers on all
clients, but to do this it asked for network administrator's login and
password. Since nobody working there had passwords to login to their
workstations or had ever heard of administrator accounts I had to
manually install on every client.
This net was just a workgroup, without a central server.. so i had no
idea how to get that password.
Any idea?
