TP-LINK TL-PS110P Single Parallel Port Fast Ethernet Print Server

Having looked for a print server for an ancient, but reliable, LaserJet 5L printer I finally decided to go for the TP-Link. I'd read reviews of other devices saying that they only supported one printer at a time, kept dropping off the network, were complex to setup, so I was a little nervous. I also have a very mixed set of machines, 2 XP, 1 Win 7 and 1 Mac, which also ruled out a number of other models. However, it all turned out to be pretty easy with this piece of kit. You will need a Windows machine (and yes, it supports Windows 7, which was good news). I simply plugged it into the back of the printer, put my network cable in and ran the installation disc. It does say for you to have the IP address of your router handy (it's usually 192.168.x.x and if you don't know it go into the router setup page, or look at the manufacturers website) and it then suggests an IP address for the printer on the network. It sounds complex, but it's really straight-forward. If you already had the printer installed on the machine, it detects it and that is pretty much it. If not (and I didn't), you install it using the 'Add Printer' menu (it says to install it as a local printer and to use LPT1, which works fine). Setting up the Mac was even easier. The server has AppleTalk built into it, so just hitting the '+' button in 'Printer & Fax' menu brings it up as a printer to add, click on it, job done! The XP machines were a little more involved, having to add the printer manually. You won't see it under 'network printers', instead you have to configure a port and type in the printer's IP address. Again, it's in the instructions (if a little buried in the manual), but it's simple to do when you know how. Multiple machines can be on and all access the printer at the same time. There is a web interface where you can access reports such as what jobs were sent to the printer and when and set up detailed and complex parameters if that's your thing. Print servers can be a little temperamental if you loose your internet connection, or re-boot your modem or router. It survived both. All in all, simple, effective, cheaper than a lot of other models - what's not to like!

I wanted to make a Dymo label writer which is a USB device available as a network printer. I run a business from home and have a network comprising a couple of PCs, a network printer and an NAS hard drive + numerous wireless devices including laptops, smartphones, Ipads, etc. The TS-PS310U is not strictly a print server, rather it is designed to make USB devices shareable on a network. Because of USB limitations, only one computer can access the attached device at a time but the supplied software handles this by connecting to the printer only when a print is requested and disconnects immediately that has happened. In practice that has not given us any issues at at all but I am not sure what would happen if there were more users with conflicting demands. After a simple wiring hook-up, set up is easy with the supplied software required to be installed on each computer, including wireless laptops. In our case we then simply pointed the Dymo label software at the correct printer. One little thing I noted was that as the software was installed on each computer it showed other the computers a shareable version of the printer as though it was hooked up to that machine as well as the networked version. It was simply a case of using windows device manager to delete the local versions leaving only the network version of the printer. This avoids any issue with the Dymo label software looking at the wrong printer. One other issue is that network devices such as printers or disk drives really need fixed IP addresses (as opposed to having them assigned by DHCP) and the TP Link software made this easy to do. I have read some reviews suggesting there are issues with the TL-PS310U when connected to a USB hard drive but that was not what I wanted it for. For my simple purpose in making the simplest of USB printers a networked printer independent of needing any particular computer switched on, it worked flawlessly so five stars from me!

The product does the job required. However: the manual says it has a default address of 192.168.0.10. It fails to mention that by default DHCP is enabled. Secondly I installed the software supplied (Windows 7). Big mistake. There's a web interface that does what is needed without the software. From this point on other computers could print via this device, but not the one with the software loaded. The software hadn't configured the printer, and it seems to have taken over the printer for itself so I couldn't configure it. I tried to uninstall the software. There's no uninstaller supplied, but re-running the installer has a "remove" option. That failed. I ended up having to reboot into safe mode and using System Restore to undo the installation. Once that was done, I could print to it. An hour and a half wasted. More investigating shows that you have to manually connect to the printer using the supplied application, which then locks any other computer out until you manually disconnect. Rubbish. Fortunately there is another way. DO NOT install the software. In Windows connect by using Add a Printer, choose Local printer, TCPIP port, and add the TCPIP address. (You will need to fix the address, either manually or using a DHCP reservation). Then CHANGE the protocol from raw to lpd, and set the queue name to raw. This type of setup connects, prints and disconnects automatically. However while it's printing, attempts to print from other computers may get errors. The major downside of this method is that you only get access to a connected printer. For a multifunction the other parts (scanner, card slot etc) are not available.

I was looking for a print server that would work with my Epson Photo Stylus 2100 and I settled on the TP Link TL-PS310U. This tiny device will allow you to share printers, scanners and storage devices across the network. It is housed in a very small package that is easily hidden, as in my case, behind the desk. The price is very attractive and will work, in my case with my printer where print servers two and three times the price would not. If you are thinking about getting a print server makes sure that it is compatible with your printer. Putting up printer on the network can be quite tricky. So the first thing you should do is to get onto the TP Link website and choose Print Servers. You should then click the downloads and and look at the compatibility list making sure your printer or other USB device is listed. Be aware that some manufacturers such as Epson use a different model number in different regions. For example my Stylus Photo 2100 in the USA becomes the 2200. The compatibility list only lists the 2200. So you need a little knowledge about your printer. The other point to bear in mind is that whilst the devise can be shared across the network only one user can access it at the time. This should not be a problem in most households but would not be suitable in an office situation with two or more people want to print at the same time. I was unable to give this product 5 stars because it fell down dismally on documentation. Also TP Link does not mention anything about Windows 8. So if you have a Windows 8 system then below is the method I used to install the TL-PS310U. If you are running Windows 8 disregard the instructions for loading the software it will not work. Instead access the files on the installation disk and navigate to the folder "TL-PS310U" then run setup.exe. Windows will detect a problem in installation, click to run in compatibility mode. The software will then be loaded and you can go ahead and configure the device. After rebooting your computer. We now come to another problem that the documentation lacks and that it is the driver. Make sure that your printer, TL-PS310U, power is plugged into your router. And run the print server control software after rebooting your computer. The first stage is to configure the IP address. By default it will use DHCP to obtain an IP address. You may want to leave it at DHCP but I think a static IP would be preferable. Again the documentation is unclear. You should now see your connected device. Click on your device to connect but by default the connection will only last 30 seconds. You will need to go into "Options" and on check "Disconnect printer when idle". The TP Link documentation indicates that Windows will automatically load the print driver. As in my case it will not load the print driver so you need to install the driver according to the printers documentation. I am taking a guess that the driver will see this as a USB device not a network device. Also if Windows does download a driver it may not be the best driver for your printer, it would be best to get the most recent driver from the manufacturer's website. Once you got this setup it is an excellent device and will allow print sharing across the network. I have not tried it with a hub but I have read elsewhere that that is possible. Pros: small low-cost reliable print server. Cons: Poor and confusing documentation, manufacture has not updated software for working with Windows 8.

Very, very disappointed with this product. On paper it looked like the ideal solution for my network printing requirements. TP-Link products usually just work out of the box: this was a real shock - it didn't! Even worse, this review is on the *second* example unit following the return and replacement of the first one. The firmware is pretty buggy, and the supporting software is immature and underdeveloped. The following issues exist: - it has randomly corrupted it's settings: specifically in one case it randomly set a password, preventing me from accessing the settings page or modifying the settings any further. This persisted even after a reset to defaults, and (unbelievably) following a re-flash of the firmware! - the re-flashing procedure is undocumented, neither in the manual nor on the support site. - The Biggie: if you disable IPP print services, it also disables LPR network printing (not documented). LPR printing remains indicating "Enabled", when it is not. Believe me, I have sweated over this one. Words fail me. - although my printer (a standard HP LJ 1200) is on the "supported" list, it has problems: the server is unable to wake the printer from sleep mode (whereas a direct connection using the same driver software does): the "bidirectional" printer support isn't: print jobs hang as progress acknowledgements are lost: the standard HP drivers for both MAC and PC are unable to drive the printer reliably. - although advertised as compatible with HP JetAdmin or WebAdmin, it is most definitely NOT! - all documentation relating to Apple Mac is for OS 8/9, without any mention of OS X. - the Web configuration pages randomly fail to display: on source inspection, the page's document header for the HTML is occasionally not sent, resulting in page display failures. - only a subset of settings are available on the web config page: others are displayed and set from the (PC only) PSAdmin program delivered to manage the product - ridiculous! - the product supports SMB/CIF, AppleTalk, NetBEUI, LPR, IPP and Novell Netware print services. It is not possible to turn some of these off (eg., if they are not required on your network). JetDirect compatible HP printers allow you to disable individual print services selectively. After a little experimentation, it is apparent that services marked as "Disabled" are still in fact, active. Support (via email) from TP-Link has been slow, patchy, and in fact downright dismissive: the IPP/LPR stack bug described above was blamed on HP's printer drivers even after I had performed an exhaustive diagnosis of the bug and proven it to lie in the server firmware. There are even bugs in the support request page used to request help - there's only a maximum of 200-ish characters for your problem description, requiring numerous email exchanges across two widely separated time zones, taking many days to exchange the bare minimum of useful diagnostic information. The latest firmware update on the UK product support page is dated 2010, indicating that the product may have already been abandoned as an orphan by TP-Link. In short, this has been such a bad experience for me I will not be buying any more TP-Link products ever again, full stop. Save your money on this one, folks - look elsewhere.

I've had a MFP printer (an Epson R300M) and a number of USB drives that I've had for a while but I've always looked at how I could share them around the wireless network at home so that I could share large files easily and print from a laptop from the back garden. Storage servers with bays for hard drive and dedicated print servers always seemed very expensive but when I saw this and spotted the reviews and price I had to give it a go. The device itself is very easy to use - you plug in the USB devices you want to share (I used a USB 2.0 hub so I could share both storage and the printer at the same time), you plug in a Ethernet cable that connects the box to your wireless router/hub and plus in the power. Simple. You then install a little bit of software onto every computer that you want to access the printer and drive(s). It takes a few minutes to install the software and once it's installed you're ready to go. Click on the new icon on the desktop that looks like the device and it connects you to the Print and Storage server and shows you the connected devices, you then select the device you want to use and click 'connect' and you're connected! The printer connects automatically and disconnects after 30 seconds of inactivity. As far as the computer is concerned when you start the application it sees a new USB hub and when you click on the application and you get the `pum-pum' tone when you connect the device from the application, just like you would if you plugged the USB cable into the machine. It works great and it's a very cheap and simple way to share existing printers and drives around the home.

** NOTE ADDED: 30 June 2014 Raised the readies and bought the latest version (Hardware v 2.0): works, as advertised, with Windows 8. Latest software seems to also be better on Win 7 as well. ** NOTE ADDED: 15 March 2014 Windows 8 support is Hardware dependent - the new v2.x of the PS310U IS Windows 8 compatible, however, v1.4 (mine) is not. There is, according to the TP-Link Technical Support Team no available upgrade for the latter. ** NOTE THAT AT PRESENT THERE IS NO SUPPORT FOR WINDOWS 8 **** (wef 7 Sep 2013) With some trepidation given the significant (albeit small percentage-wise) number of poor reviews I ordered this anyway. I am using solely as a printer server and cannot comment on how it works for storage etc. Installed easily and connection made for 2 PCs without difficulty. I have found that need to explicitly connect before printing for the first job of a session on a PC to ensure a smooth connection; thereafter seems to connect and print smoothly. Found one anomaly in that the printer wouldn't work on the second PC until I removed a redundant link to it from when it was shared from the other PC, it had previously been directly connected to, and then re-ran the software. Found that I did NOT need to disable my Firewall to install, despite the instructions, although did need to run the software as an Administrator. Its limitations are as described in other reviews - it does not turn your printer into a true network one as there is no queueing facility and is strictly one connection at a time. Not a problem in my, nor I suspect most people's, home environment. One point of note: don't be put off by the compatibility list. Neither of my HP printers were listed and both work without problem. I suspect most of the mainstream makes such as HP, Cannon etc should work. One piece of advice - the manual on the supplied mini-CD is not the correct one as it does not refer to Windows 7. The correct one (in pdf format), however, can be downloaded from the TP Link website.

I nearly threw this in the bin after about 5 hours of installing and uninstalling and getting nowhere over a couple of days. Suddenly it worked - but God knows how. This has to be the toughest set-up I have ever wrangled with and the frustration is still with me some 6 weeks later. The instructions - including the long version off the manufacturer's site leave out some crucial steps about configuring the IP address as, frankly, some of the reviewers do here. The choice is either study the manuals minutely and crack your brain or just bung the whole thing in and hope for the best. However I found that all attempts to get the "How to configure by print to queue" (See Els' review 4 Oct 2011) competely failed. I give 2 stars because it does work as an efficent device switcher and our home arrangement means that the pc and the laptop connecting by wifi are virtually never in competition so print queuing does not matter. You may strike lucky like some people here - otherwise be prepared for considerable time consuming frustration. Absolutely not for computer novices. Tony Farson