Print server question

[robjduk]

When setting up a print server, is it recommended the printers are either on a separate VLAN or subnet? Im going to move the print server I inherited soon and it was subnetted by the guy before me and wonder just how important it is in the grand scheme of things?

 

Thanks

[Frut02]

Never had any issues with it all being on the same one... Couldn't see why there would be a problem.

[robjduk]

Well that's what I was thinking but just wanted to be sure there wasn't a valid reason. We have about 20ish printers and nothing too heavy. To me its a pain to use a subnet as I can never get the auto alerts to work behind one.

[yhttech]

No reason to, unless you want to take them out of the regular VLAN. Print jobs are not huge bottleneck causes.

[pantscat]

The only reason I can see that you'd want to do this is to stop people printing direct to the printers via IP, rather than through the print sever.

[ICTonto]

I think the main reason is that printers are very "chatty", if you plug in wireshark into your network, you'll be surprised at the amount of printer talk going on, this is on my to-do list, but as stated above, its not a deal breaker

[tmcd35]

Printers

 

Printers can be another source of excessive network traffic. As you probably know, many printers can use a network card to directly connect to the network, so they don't have to be physically connected to a PC. On many of these printers, the factory default is to have all supported protocols enabled. Such protocols can include anything from TCP/IP to Apple Talk. It's not uncommon for a single printer to be using six different protocols. If you have printers directly connected to your network, it will probably be worth your time to get out the printer's documentation, and figure out how to disable all unnecessary protocols.

 

From here: Making Your Network More Efficient