Rating: 
Summary: Works great until it breaks
Review: I gave up after my second one stopped working. Terrible customer support - It's been outsourced to India and they don't speak english well. Also, they charge to replace defective units and getting replacements is a hassle. Low quality product.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Product, Wrong Solution
Review: I had my HP1100A networked to my LAN over a SOHOWARE Plug&Play mini port print server for the past 3 years. Product worked great out of the box except I had to build a special interface because the SOHOWARE print server has a standard Centronics-36 interface and the Laserjet has a Mini-Centronics-C connector. When I started upgrading my PCs to WinXP I found that this print server, while it worked under Win98/2000 perfectly, wasn't compatible with XP and had been discontinued by the maker anyway.
I selected the Netgear PS101 Mini Pocket Print Server as a replacement because it's XP-compatible and uses the same Centronics-36 interface so I could just swap it for my old SOHOWARE print server in my set up. I thought. While the Netgear may be XP compatible it wasn't compatible with my setup. My PCs installed and "see" the port just fine, they detect the printer and install the correct drivers for it but nothing actually prints, even from the Netgear Administration Webpage. Buried in the reference manual is the statement that the device is not compatible with the mini-Centronics-C connector used by HP. After fussing with it for a few days I replaced it with a D-Link print server and that worked perfectly right out of the box.
I'm giving it 3 stars because the documentation is good, the software loads and runs perfectly, and my LAN could install and run the print server w/o a hitch. It just isn't compatible with my printer even with an adapter and that's not immediately clear from the technical discription on Amazon.
Rating: 
Summary: works great with win98 pcs
Review: I had this set up and working very quickly. i have a netgear wireless router (802.11 b) and two Windows 98 machines - a desktop and a laptop and both work fine with this print server. I could not get it to work with my Mac OS X desktop, but did not try very hard. I was not expecting it to work with OS X--I don't think it's supported officially, so I was not bummed out by this.
Rating: 
Summary: A year of anger and frustration
Review: I have bought this print server for about a year, and it brought me nothing but anger and frustration every time I wanted to print something.First of all, you could not just send your print out to the server. You had to ping it first to "wake it up." Otherwise, it wouldn't respond to the client. Then, sometimes even pinging wouldn't work. The server responded to ping but I still couldn't print. The client on my PC kept telling me that there wasn't a server. Rebooting the server or my PC would not always work. Worse, often when I tried to use their tools, trying to "shack up" something (there weren't sufficient tools in the first place), the tools sometimes crashed and the server port disappeared from my PC. I had no way to get the port back, but to uninstall and install the thing again. Do not buy it. If you really want it, I am selling it cheap.
Rating:
Summary: Failure Rate Too High; NetGear Won't Replace
Review: I have to say that I'm not at all impressed by this product. I originally got it because of its size (it's relatively small), and the fact that I have an older laser printer with a parallel port interface (HP LaserJet 6P). My main problem with the product has been its unreliability to complete a print job. Whatever I send to the printer, I have about a 50% chance of actually seeing output. That drops to around 10%-20% if two or more jobs are being sent concurrently (what's the point of having a print server if one can't print more than one thing at a time?). I should note that this happens whether printing from Windows 2000, OS X or Linux (lpr or CUPS). My hunch is that printer support is iffy, but one is hard pressed to find out from NetGear which printers work and which don't. Unfortunately experimentation is often the only route. I'm pretty sure the printer is fine, as when I use a computer to share the printer (via printer sharing), I never lose a job and everything works well. Losing jobs wouldn't be such a pain if all printing was done from the same room as the printer (since it would be easy to tell when something needed to be printed again). However, in our household, we have two wireless laptops, and it's a pain to have to always walk into the office to make sure the print job got through right away rather than just being able to rely on it getting done to be picked up later. Another complaint I have is that the unit seems to lose its configuration quite regularly. I find that if I power cycle it, I have about a 20% chance that it will reset to factory defaults. This is a pain for me, since I print from OS X and Linux which both like to have a static IP for the printer. When the unit resets, it loses its IP address, and all of a sudden I can't find the printer. The only reason I didn't give this product one star is because when it doesn't lose my print job and actually retains its configuration, it actually works semi-well. Overall, if you're like me, and you don't like constantly tweaking, prodding, goading, etc. to get something to work, or you might be printing from outside the immediate vicinity of the printer, I would spend the extra money and desk space and get something that works reliably.
Rating:
Summary: still trying it out
Review: I just bought this from a local electronics store, and I'm having some issues getting it to work properly on two WinXP Pro machines. Installation wasn't very smooth. The documentation and utility software are horrible. The "administrative" tools are useless. I tried to telnet directly to the print server, and the only commands available were "monitor" and "exit". I tried to update the firmware, but there are no clear instructions on how to do this; not in the admin utilities, and not in the instruction manual, and not on the Netgeat website. I found out that I have to download the Appletalk firmware file and extract a firmware updater app from there. Sheesh!
As of right now, I don't think I can recommend this product. I wasn't expecting much from a $60 print server, but I was at least expecting it to work. I'm going to play around with it for one more day. If I can't get it to work, then I'm returning it. For those who still want to buy it, here are some things you should know..
* To update the firmware, you need to download the Appletalk firmware file. Inside the ZIP file, you'll see an EXE program. This is the tool for updating the firmware.
* Printer monitoring utilities do not work. If your printer came with a utility that relays printer status and ink levels, it will not work. I knew this before I bought the print server, but I don't think it was clearly stated on the box or the instruction manual.
* You don't need to install the client software. You may want to use the Server utilities to assign a name to the print server and an IP address. Once you do that, you can just use the Windows Add Printer Wizard to search for the printer.
* This print server is not ideal for high volume, large print jobs. It's cool for printing news articles from the web or your kid's book reports. But if you're in a small/medium office or if you're a graphic designer, then spend the money for a decent print server.
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| UPDATE |
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Ok, after another day of playing around with it, I finally got it to work. Throw away the instruction manual because it's worthless. Here's how I set this up on my WinXP Pro machines.
* Installed the Netgear "admin" software to assign a static IP, subnet mask, a default gateway, and a name for the print server.
* Reserved the IP address on my Netgear router so that only the print server can use it.
* Launch the Windows Add Printer Wizard, Local Printer (uncheck auto detect), Create a New Port (Standard TCP/IP), Enter the IP address of the print server, select Generic Network Card, Finish.
* The rest of the wizard is pretty standard; select your appropriate printer from the list, select the drivers or keep the existing one, assign the printer a name, Finish.
I guess I'll be keeping this print server afterall. :-)
Rating: 
Summary: Easiest part of my XP Pro SP2 Install
Review: I'll jump right to it and give this 5 stars -- for my application:
PC #1 -- Win XP Pro with SP2 (arrghhh!), Ethernet cabled
PC #2 -- Win 98 SE, Netgear wireless card
Brother HL-1440 laser printer, this Print Server attached
Netgear WGT624v2 router
Unlike some other reviewers, I found the 12-page printed User's Guide to be all I needed. Carefully follow the advice, including perhaps their suggestions on page 5 for IP addresses, and if you're like me, the print server is installed and both PC's up and printing fine -- in 15 to 20 minutes. Seriously. In fact, it's taking me as long to write this review as to install and test the print server. I'm impressed.
The reason I'd bought the Print Server in the first place is because the Win 98 PC had problems trying to see the printer "through" the XP Pro PC. After playing with software for two evenings, this hardware solution avoided the problem, and consider this money WELL spent! In fact, staring at all the heap of new equipment this week around me, this goes down as time-saving bargain of the week if I consider my time worth anything at all.
Rating:
Summary: Works with SCO Unix
Review: I've got about 10 print servers on our Unix network and 3 of them are these little boxes. I've had no problems using them with laser printers, dot matrix and barcode printers.
Rating:
Summary: Product Better than Documentation
Review: Once working, works well. It wasn't obvious to me that accessing the PS101 from a wireless laptop thru a Netgear MR814 required turning off Microsoft's firewall. Wasn't obvious to their tech support either. Observed only minimal degradation in print speed.
Rating:
Summary: I've had no problems
Review: Original May 2, 2004
I run the IT at a medical office in a semi rural area. We wanted to add a second network printer. (Our existing printer is an HP2200DN). We could buy a stocked HP 2300 at a fairly good price but would have to order the HP network version which is an HP2300N and at List Price to get the built in print server. So instead, we got a Netgear PS101 to go with the HP2300. All I wanted was something that could work fairly well compared to the HP print server and we could save about $200. The PS101 met my expectations. Our network is one server running Server 2003, nine workstations running windows 2000, two workstations running windows XP, a hardware router/firewall (does the DHCP) and a DSL modem in addition to the printer previously mentioned. I installed the Netgear print server in the HP (It fit nicely), installed the Netgear software only on the server. I reconfigured the IP address on the print server to a fixed IP using the netgear adminstration software(this is what is done with the Hp server as well as being suggested by Netgear, so I didn't think it to be a problem). Straight forward. On each workstation, I did not use the Netgear software to install the printer on the workstation. (I did not want to clog up the workstations with more proprietary software). I used the standard Windows local TCP/IP printer port installation using windows generic settings for the Netgear print server driver. I used the latest printer drivers for the HP2300 that I found on the HP web site. No problems. Straight forward, out of the box. First time everything worked. Nothing was a redo. Works fine with server 2003 and 2000 and XP but then we don't use the XP firewall on a network (I really don't understand why one would. I thought that's what the router was for. But if i did I would open the port used for printers - 9100.) I have dealt with Netgear service with a router. They can't help you. They ARE a waste of time. In all fairness, telephone support is a difficult job. But what do you want for a $80, $70, $65? Much better help is available on forums on the web where my router problem was quickly identified and resolved by someone who already solved my identical problem. (An unusual problem related to our common DSL provider though we were 2000 miles apart) I have read of Netgear hardware problems for several years but have never personally experienced any on the three Netgear routers and netgear print server i have used on the four networks I maintain. My suggestion is that one should either have access to a web forum or have some understanding of TCP/IP protocol before taking on these projects. My impression is that disappointed people appear to have neither. Added 5/19/04
I still haven't had any problems. Even with large files. Apparently, the method I used for software installation as I described above (i.e. use the standard windows stuff rather than Netgear's printer installer) is the suggested method by Netgear (See Netgear website, support, 1st item under trouble shooting) when one has problems with large files OR one has HP equipment (or several other problems). I had done this with the HP2200DN so it just seemed like the obvious thing to do at the time of PS101 installation particularly when one does not want to load up on proprietary software. Others having problems have not stated whether they tried using a standard Windows installation. I do not work for Netgear. I just have not yet had any problems with routers or print servers that could not be handled, even without any help from Netgear. I would still suggest access to a web forum for those having problems. I'm buying another one for home.
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