A Bit More About The Home Network
As I mentioned on Monday my head is full of ideas for the network I want in our new house. Yesterday it hit a snag, involving the printer, the remedy for which is going to cost me more than I would like.
Briefly the current setup is as follows: My office contains the switch, both servers, my main PC and the laser printer. One of these servers acts as the domain/file-sharing/print server. It acts as the print server by virtue of being within reach of a parallel cable from the printer. The printer is not a network printer, as such.
In the new house ideally I want to have both servers out of the way somewhere. Maybe in the loft (is that a good idea?) near the main "hub" that will serve the whole house. Doing this means that the printer will be no longer be close enough to the server to connect via a simple cable. What I need to do is turn it in to a network printer.
Here's comes the shocking part. We all know that printer consumables are a complete rip-off but this one really sucks. Kyocera have done such a good job of keeping the FS-1010 so cheap at £179 that it's cheaper than the network plug-in module you can buy at £199. This module is so expensive to buy as an extra that it would have been far cheaper to buy the FS-1010N at £310, which includes the network card already. Maybe it would even be better in the long run to sell my FS-1010 and put the money toward the FS-1010N with its fresh toner cartridge (at £54 a pop).
The sensible option may be to invest in one of these mini print servers from Netgear for about a quarter of the price of Kyocera's. One thing is for sure - this whole network reshuffle ain't going to be cheap. It won't be long before I return to JobServe at this rate...
Just finished working on a client site - Bluebird, Kitchens for North West England.
Skip to the 
You can subscribe to an individual
Jake, probably not quite as cheap as you would like but what about a wireless print server
{Link}
Don't really need it to be wireless Matt. The printer is probably going to stay in the office and this will have more than enough network points.
Why don't you just make a Parallel cable yourself to the desired length you require.
Jake,
I have one of these {Link} and it works fine. Plugs into normal ethernet and it has 2xUSB ports and one Parallel - works with Linux+Windows+Mac+Netware etc. About ■75+vat, but if you only want one port it is ■50+vat. Currently attached to my Laserjet 1200 via USB. Has its only little website for configuration purposes, though I think I had to use a Windows program to set it up the first time.
Ian
Stu. The servers are going in the loft. I don't really want to have to plumb parallel cables in to the wall ducting. Anyway, isn't there a limit on the length of parallel cables!? Mine would need to be up to 10m to do it this way.
Jake,
You won't go wrong with one of those Netgear boxes. I used to work for an Aviation company who were too tight to buy network printers and so we had many of these attached to cheap inkjets. (Yuck).
They can sometimes play up but nothing that a quick on/off doesn't solve.
Jake,
I use one of the Netgear print servers you mentioned. I have it hooked up to my Canon MFC laser and it handles printing duties just fine. It's been on the job since January. I looked at the wireless option too, but like you I didn't need it and did not want to spend the cash.
Keith
Jake, my comment would be about the servers in the loft idea, is the loft clean well insulated and ventilated.
Most lofts I have ever been in are usually dusty, and either suffer from extremes of temprature due to lack of insulation against the roofing material or can be viciously hot if there is.
Whats more ventilation in these areas is usually poor.....
Furthermore have you thought about backups, or are you going to use some sort of NAS backup?
Perhaps I am being to simplistic could you not run the printer of your P.C.
10m is no probelm for a printer cable. I've had them longer than that. However it need to be good quality cable. It probably cheaper/less hastle to buy a printer server than have the cable made up.
David. The loft is insulated but farely dust-free from what I could tell. Most of the floor area is covered so it's easier to walk on and there's a hatch with one of those ladders that fall down. Pretty standard stuff. Will have to see how it goes with having the servers in there. Maybe they would be better off under my desk...
Don't want to run the printer off my PC as it's used from multiple PCs by different users.
Jake, can't you share the printer out from one of the PC's?
You need a Netgear PS101 - I swear by (not at) them. Cheap as chips on Ebay.
{Link}
Sounds like you shouldn't be discounting wireless though if you want to surf in the garden or in front of the tv.
Connect your office and loft via ethernet. Get an access point ({Link} - connect it to your broadband connection - Get a wireless ethernet converter (eg Linksys WET54 or {Link} ) so all your networked kit can "see" the internet and a cheapo wirelesss card for your laptop.
Get it all from Ebay and you'll get the best of both worlds for ■150 max.
Sorted!
Oh and don't worry about sticking your servers in the loft, they'll be fine as long as your lofts not too hot. Just stick them on a rubber mat or the vibrations will drive you mad (from soneone who knows).
Jim. I'm not discounting wireless by any means. It's only the wireless print server I saw no use in. The network itself will cover as much as the house and garden with wi-fi as possible. I've already got 3 WAPs (don't ask!) so that should go well.
I used a Linksys print server (USB, no parallel) for over a year with a new Dell laptop. My experience was not good.
The print server would lock up about once a week, even though I hardly used it. It also was very picky about the order of turning things on -- switch, router, printer, print server.
So right now its connected directly to my Mac and shared from there. If I ever need to have the printer away from other hardware, I'd probably just buy a HP printer with a NIC built-in. I hear those do much better.
Good luck!
Just have the printer connected directly with the paz cable to any old PC and share it out over the network (wireless or whatever).
Cost = 0.
I set up the neighbours yard like this and safari, sogoodi, as Christopher Biggins used to say.
An old PC, Ghostscript, Linux,Samba and you have a postscript printer shared to windows client. You can simply add some other service like nightly differed printing of long document, PDF conversion.
If you add hylafax you can receive fax and route it to your domino server via SMTP or print it directly.