Print Server - Best Practices?

[TamedTech]

Afternoon Guys,

I'm currently working with a client to help organise all of thier IT systems, its a little bit of a mess.

They're currently running a Workgroup based evnvironment, with the majority of the clients running Windows XP Pro SP2.

They are a Printing & Copy Shop mainly dealing with large volume Digital Printing and Copying through some large scale Toshiba and OCE equipment. Each printer currently has its own print server assigned to it which sits and manages the print que's and suchlike ... these systems sit prettymuch untouched.

Each client on the network then has the printer drivers installed and customer TCP/Ip port created to print to the system.

So, I'm looking to upgrade them to a Domain based environment to bring the control into a more centered location and thus make my life as the administrator a little easier, at the moment its a bit of a free for all lol.

So, I'd idealy like to consolidate the print servers into the 1 box, which would idealy be running SBS2003.

Do you guys have any recomendations on how i should be configuring this server to best meet my requirements, print servers isnt really somthing i've worked with in the past, I usual only get my grubby mitts involved for file and e-mail rolls.

Thanks for any advice.

Rob

 

[JGALEY]

With high volume printing and graphics (?), my biggest concern would be how much network bandwidth and disk space/speed is needed to support these printers. You might find that one print server is not enough to give them good performance.

Print serving usually requires good network and disk subsystem performance.

HTH,

Jason

http://www.catotek.com

 

[TamedTech]

Thanks for that Jason,

My thoughts were along the same line, and yes, it will be large files and graphics that are printed, so network issues are the optimum concern I feel.

Is it possible to have multiple network adapters in the server to handle different printers? that woulld help with the bandwidth issues.

Multi-Servers is somthing that we can do, but i would really like to look at consolidation if its going to be possible.

Thanks for the help,

Rob

 

[58sniper]

You didn't say how many printers we're dealing with here. I have a couple of clients running SBS2003 that use some high volume printers and aren't running into problems.

I would suggest making sure the spool directory is not on the C: drive of the server. You don't want huge print jobs borking your server in the middle of the day!

Pat Richard, MCSE(2) MCSA:Messaging, CNA(2)

 

[TamedTech]

Thanks guys,

We're dealing with about 10-15 large volume printers, prodominatly printing PDF, PSD and EPS files, and all the other standard graphic program exports.

I'd rather not have multiple servers and just consolidate into the one box if possible.

I make a habbit of dedicating the C Drive to the OS and vital programs only anyways, I always have a datavolume for all my general files, I can quite easily have an additional fast disk for spools if thats going to help.

I'm going for a Gigabit network infrastructure which should keep things nice and quick.

Obviously as this is a print company, time is money where this kind of things is concerned, so i need to make sure everything is quick and reliable.

I know i've read good things on SBS2003 print services being very reliable which is a bit of a relief.

Any further advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Rob