Belkin’s Wireless Print Server - Printing
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Now it's time to see how it prints. If it fails here, it fails as a product. The first type of printing I did was FTP printing. Printing via FTP isn’t done very much anymore, but it is relatively easy. You must use DOS to perform FTP printing. If you don’t know how to print using FTP in DOS, the user manual gives you step by step instructions with pictures. I was able to print using this method the first time without any issues. I did have to check the manual to see what the default username is, which is “anonymous.” By default, there is no password.
Next we will compare printing times. While some people won’t mind print times, others may print items constantly, and little bits can add up. If you're printing big sets of pictures, the time required to finish is longer than a few text pages. The difference in time between color pictures and black and white text is different from printer to printer.
We will be testing the wired connection and the wireless connection using the print server. I needed to find a massive picture which can take a long time to send to the printer to test this. Most pictures taken with consumer cameras range up to a few megabytes in size. This size would not reflect the real transfer rate, since such pictures are just too small, and each transfer would take a fraction of a second. So, for these tests, I used a picture for Mars. It weighs in at a whopping 38.5 MB, that’s 12316 x 4218 pixels. When I went to print it, the printer control panel listed the picture as 195 MB in size. I’m figuring that the transfer may take a little longer with the wireless connection, due to the slower speed. The times are from the time I click Print until the time the printer finished with the printing.
The difference between wired and wireless was one second. There goes the idea that wireless printing takes longer. The wireless connection was “g,” which is 54 mbps. If we were able to bump it down to the ‘b” speeds, the differences may have greater. There is a little difference, but one second won’t be noticeable. If you had a picture bigger than this, and I don’t know too many times that you would, then the times would begin to separate. Again, the picture was 38.5 MB; most pictures are a lot smaller then this, and the difference between wired and wireless printing will be even smaller.
Why use a print server? There are so many different and cheaper ways. This product retails for $134. Let’s compare the different ways of sharing a printer. You can connect a printer to a computer and share it via that computer. It’s fast, and free. The downside is that if the computer the printer is connected happens to not be on, you’re not going to be able to print. If you have an old PC around the house, you can use that as a file server and connect the printer to that and share. You can leave that old PC on all the time, and always have an accessible printer all the time. Doesn’t this sound easy and cheap?
Using this print server does have some purpose. My biggest reason for buying this is space. With this device, you can put the printers anywhere in the wireless network, and the only connection needed is power. I have run out of space next to my computer. I was able to move the printers to a different room and use them. I would otherwise need to run a USB cable through my house just to print. Another big advantage is that, under the printer and faxes in the control panel, the printers show up as local printers, whereas when sharing the printers, it shows up as a shared.
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