Q: I'm going to buy a 2nd printer. My 1st printer is connected to my router, so that 2 desktops can use my printer. I'm going to put the printer on the router also. I print a lot for work and so does my wife. What does a printer server do? And what are some advantages on using one, instead of just hooking it up to my network? If this matters, I'm using a D-Link DIR-655 and 2 HP printers.
A: A print server (in the home/small office sense of the word) is simply a device to hook up a computer that does not have built-in networking capability. It "coverts" the USB or Parallel port from your printer to a TCPIP connectoin that you can plug into the router. If your printer has built-in networking, there is absolutely no reason to purchase a print server. There is also the idea of a print server that is essentially a comptuer (linux, windows etc.) that handles printing for a company... It can be part of the main server, or a dedicated server just for processing print jobs. Let's say you have 30 HP laserjet X printers in the organizaiton in a room, you just set the user's PC's to print to the print server, and it can choose which printer happens to be free at the moment and closest to the user... Or you can specify you want a color printer, that can print double-sided, and at least 20 pages per minute, and has 24lb, glossy paper loaded in it, and the print server can route your print job to the nearest printer that matches that criteria... That is not the kind of "print server" you are talking about, though (I assume :))