Netgear PS101 Mini Print Server (1 Port)

The Netgear mini print server is, I’ve finally decided a fantastic little device. My reason for apparent indecisiveness is that initially I thought it was fantastic, then I encountered a number of issues, but now it’s up and running it’s one again great.Firstly the design; this is the perfect device for users who don’t have much desk/office space or hate the clutter of more network boxes dotted about the place. It’s enough to see cable modems, routers and switches without adding printer servers into the mix (with associated trailing patch cables).The Netgear cleanly and simply plugs directly into the back of your printer’s parallel port, in my case into the back of a HP 990cxi. Into the back of the unit plugs the power lead and network cable, all out of site. A light on the back of the printer server allows you to monitor the activity should your document disappear into ‘print space’.A number of things are commendable about the PS101 not least it’s size/design. Firstly it has a very high compatibility rating, before I purchased this server I looked at a number of others available that do a similar job, both parallel and USB (more about that in a sec). The Netgear seemed to be the most highly rated among users especially for the price. I didn’t need a larger more sophisticated unit as I only have 5 PCs sharing the printer; a Win2K server, 2 x Win2K desktops a WinXP desktop and a WinXP laptop.Setting up the Netgear server is initially quite straight forward, run the install application and follow the instructions. Give your Printer server a sensible name on the network (too long a name and it will be truncated) mine’s simply and logically labelled ‘printer server’ as there’s only one on the network at present. The only incompatibility I found seemed to be with Windows XP. The server allows you to set up wither a static IP or a dynamic one. As the printer server appears initially nameless in the DHCP table I decided to give it a static IP, this seemed to work fine on the Windows 2K machines which could all connect fine, however confusingly on the WinXP machines although they could see the server, they couldn’t connect to the attached printer port ‘P1’. My advice would be set up the server to use a dynamic IP as it is out of the box.Once you have connected to the printer through the ‘add new printer’ dialogue in windows you will need to have your printer drivers ready to install the new network printer (regardless of whether you have the same drivers installed for a local connection already).The reason I chose a parallel printer server over a USB printer server is, at the current time, there seem to be a number of compatibility issues with USB printer servers working with all printers. The HP 990cxi printer I use is both USB and parallel, however spending money on a USB printer server was too risky a prospect according to a number of information sources I’ve read online, and I can confirm that the Netgear works fine. The other advantage is that the printer is still on the network available through the USB connection via another PC which is ‘sharing’ the printer, I can use this connection when that PC is switched on.The downside of the PS101 is quite frankly its speed. To say it is slow would be very kind, the server is terribly slow and can cause your program to momentarily freeze whilst it interfaces with the printer server. This is the downside of buying such a cheap and compact printer server. If speed is a key criteria, then I suggest you look at spending perhaps double this amount for a box that has a faster interface and perhaps more cache. The PS101 is only a 10mb/s connection, and you will notice the speed drop.Until Netgear release a 100mb/s (or perhaps even gigabit) or a wireless G (54mb/s) version of this printer server, and you’re looking to save desk space and share a printer on your network without the use of a dedicated PC permanently switched on, the PS101 is a versatile compact server and once set-up correctly highly reliable – if slow. Think about spending more money if you need a faster connection, or you need more features than basic printer sharing.

Okay so i have tried six or seven Netgear products. Most have been fine, set up easily and then worked quietly without fuss. Two haven't. The 834GT router and this, the PS101 print server.The PS101 is easy to install physically. And as I was using a netgear router I expected the next bit to be easy. Boy was I disappointed.But configuring of the system is a real problem, at least with my version of XP Pro SP2. The server set up wouldn't let me use automatic setting of IP address (even though this is the recommended route in the netgear literature. But I could ping the PS101, and also talk to it through the web interface, and it told me it was attached to the correct printer, so so far so goodAdding the printer to my computers was a nightmare. The Netgear software kept telling me that the server was recognised but that no printer was connected to it. After some web searching I found that I needed to install print server ports through the properties page of the printer I wanted to use. Dubious, but seemed to work, and I could then manually install the printer.But trying to print from any of my computers came back with the message that the printer was busy. No clues to solving this on the web or in the netgear site. So I gave up.Obviously the configuration is not robust, and highly system specific. Reading reviews some people have found installation and configuration straightforward. I didn't

We're a computer company and found this device perfect for our dot matrix printers (which are slow by default and only get a few pages of data sent to them at a time). We're also talking to our printers from DOS and one of the really nice features of the Netgear Print server is the ability to specify the domain name for your network rather than just an IP address (i.e. DOS can talk directly to the device)For our application, perfect.

Sounds good, easy to install but that is where it ends. Software is a nightmare.I atatched the print server to my wireless modem via ethernet cable to network the printer. Instaled netgear software but did not find printer, eventually found printer with windows xp printer setup though nthis to is a round about way. Have three mavhines on wireless network, only two will find the printer. the third has lost it yet again. No back up from netgear, they have lousey support.

This is an excellent piece of kit - like all other Netgear products. Once set up (a two minute job if you don't muck it up like I did) it has been indispensible - I can now print from any of my three computers without switching any of the other two on.One general comment I would make is that the buffer in the print server is quite small, so documents will take longer to spool off of your machine. For example, a six page Word document (text only) didn't finish spooling from Word until the printer was half-way through the last page.One thing to be aware of is that the installation software will let you give the print server an invalid IP address. I gave it 192.168.0.255, not realising that addresses ending in .255 cannot be assigned to devices (they are 'broadcast addresses', whatever one of those is). Like I say the software lets you do it, and there is nothing in the manual to warn you off doing this. With some help from their help line I was able to sort it out. The person I spoke to seemed rather amused at what I had done, though.I still recommend it to anybody who has more than one PC. Definitely five stars.