PS9ZRHMC@MIAMIU.BITNET (Peter Sweeney) (11/01/90)
Hi, You might have heard from me on MAC-L or Info-Mac. If so, move onto other postings! Well, I'm glad you stayed. From the Home Office in Oxford, Ohio. We have a lab of 25 SEs and a CX. We have two ImageWriter IIs and a QMS-PS 2210 Laser Printer. We have a Star Controller. All of our printers are on one leg of the Star Controller along with the the Spooler. We are using Apple's Print Server Software version 2.0. Because the ImageWriters were acting weird, we "captured" them and allowed printing. So, when a student prints to an ImageWriter, he/she is actually printing to the spooler, which then prints to the ImageWriter. Wow, is this slow. We do not have an alternative, it seems. If printing is not regulated by the Print Server, the printers will usually print half a page and then give up. (In order to regulate laser printing, we allow spooling, but not printing. Every fifteen minutes, a consultant will allow printing to the laser printer, and charge for each page printed. Clunky, but it works.) We've been running a beta-version of TrafficWatch to see what kind of activity we've been getting on the network. It turns out that the spoolers are dominating network activity. Even when nothing is being printed! We have considered buying a bridge for the ImageWriters, but this is a rather expensive solution. I'm wondering if there is some other solution available? Is this an optimal set-up for the lab? I'm wondering if perhaps placing the Print Spooler on a Ram Disk, using the RamDisk+ program is feasible/practical, and whether it will solve my problem? (I'm also interested in RAM disks in general) So, to sum up: I need thoughts and opinions on RAM Disk programs. What is the best? We are going to be running SEs under 2.5 meg RAM, and would like to copy our System Folder (1.25 meg) onto the RAM disk at startup. I need thoughts and opinions on Print Server software. What is the best? We are currently using Apple Print Server 2.0. What I really need is a FAST output device (printer) that is somewhere below the price (and output quality) of a laser printer. We are currently using 2 ImageWriter IIs, which are very nice, 'tis true, but they are not very fast, and are thus woefully inadequate for the volume we are doing. Any thoughts and opinions on our alternatives? Your help is most appreciated. Please respond directly to me, since I rarely read the news. I prefer (listservers). I WILL post a summary of replies received, if I get enough. Any response is welcome. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Sweeney | Assistant Network Administrator | 200 Elliott Hall | BITNET:ps9zrhmc@miamiu Miami University | Oxford, Ohio 45056 | INTERNET:ps9zrhmc@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu (513) 529-3982 |
scott@scotty (Scott Howard) (11/01/90)
It would seem to me that your spooler set-up forces you to transmit your data twice across your network. There is an excellent article in the latest version of MacUser detailing this problem and its solution.