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| Date Reviewed: 07/07/2007 |
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Strengths: Super easy to set up, works like a champ
Weaknesses: None I can think of, it does what it says it will do
Summary: After wrestling with an actual Print Server from another company for 6 or 7 hours, only to find out my printer isn't compatible, I was desperate to avoid a repeat. Lots of research led me to question most of the other print server choices and their compatibility with my Samsung ML-1450 Laser Printer.
The Belkin Network USB Hub box said "Industry's 1st reliable print server". The Best Buy computer guy said that it was so new he hadn't heard any feedback about it. I decided to take the plunge and I'm so happy I did. It's a little more expensive than other print servers, but what's a Saturday of frustration worth to you?
The "secret" of this thing that separates it from the others is that you don't need to mess with a bunch of IP addresses. It comes with a small resident program that you install on each computer that convinces it that the printer is actually plugged in directly. As a matter of fact your XP will pop up with the Discovered New Printer message, even while wireless through the router.
All you do is plug the Hub into your wireless or wired router, then into your USB printer. You then install the Control Center (takes just a couple of seconds). When you run the program you can already see the printer there on the list. Since a printer can only be "Connected" to one computer at a time, you simply direct the computer, through the Control Center, to connect, print, then disconnect when finished. The last step is to go to your printer icon through the Control Panel and through Properties, and click on the "Virtual USB Printer Port" in the Ports section. That's it! It was so easy. The Control Center automatically told the XP firewall that it needed access. There are also very detailed, easy to follow instructions (pictures) on how to set other common firewalls made by the big companies.
It's also great that since it connects directly through my existing wireless DSL router, I don't even have to program it for WEP or WPA-PSK codes. The computers do all the "talking" and they're already coded.
I don't think you'll regret getting this Print Server, I mean Hub. I guess you can connect lots of other things through it...external hard drive, for instance. Worst comes to worst, it'll take only a fraction of the time to find out it doesn't work for you than other brands! How's that for an endorsement!
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| Date Reviewed: 12/31/2007 |
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 Nice thought; poor performance Strengths: When it does work, it can play movies and MP3s wirelessly.
Weaknesses: MFGR exaggerates ease of setup. Unreliable.
Summary: Box says setup in 3 minutes. Knew that was too good to be true. Set this thing up with a Linksys G router. First, it took two hours to make the thing work - and when I did, its performance was substandard. Initially, it would not power up so I had to troubleshoot why the link lights next to the CAT5 wire wouldn't receive a signal from the router. Tried another cable and it didn't change anything so I went back to the cable that came with the box. Inexplicably it started working.
Next the connections seemed to work fine and the CPU recognized a webcam, 2 external HDs, and an HP laser printer. Interestingly, however, in spite of the printer being recognized print jobs would all fail. I flashed the USB hub with the latest firmware and still no success. Finally I called tech support only to get transferred to another tech line which was only operating during business hours (it was a weekend). Since I have a life and this includes a job, this project now requires business hours which impacts my job. Painful. When are businesses going to just do business 24/7? Don't understand this because in India, those call-centers operate around the clock.
At any rate, not all of the MP3s stored on the external HD were recognized by Windows Media Player 11 after the wireless configuration.
Passing data to the wireless HDs over wireless-G was painfully slow but tolerable.
The straw that broke the camel's back was during the second day of usage when all I did was reboot the CPU, only to discover the 2 external 300GB HDs were now not connecting over the network. I opened Belkin's software and clicked the connect button to no avail. Nothing changed except a simple restart. I tried to connect to both of the HDs and it never worked. Frustrated, I boxed this piece of X up and will return it tomorrow.
PD: $79.99 at Best Buy.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/11/2008 |
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Strengths: Reliable, works with devices I have tried so far (printer, WD Mybook USB drive, Mouse)
Weaknesses: Doesn't work with ActivCard (smartcard) readers. Must manually reconnect devices when resuming from sleep/hibernate or standby.
Summary: I have been able to use this successfully with notebooks that have Trend Micro firewalls installed. You need to read the technote to open the ports (19540 iirc) for this device in your profile. Belkin does have a good technote about how to get this device to work with various personal firewalls (Norton, Trend Micro, Zone Alarm, Microsoft and one other). I have a used a Western Digital USB drive attached to this due to lack of USB ports on a notebook, and although slow the performance didn't seem to be too much slower than if the drive was directly attached. I have also used this quite successfully with a Microsoft wireless mouse (due to lack of USB ports). I did not disable the track pad in the BIOS since I need to be able to reconnect devices after resuming from sleep or standby mode. I could probably do that with the keyboard, but I haven't tried. I also use this to scan across the network on an Epson 9400CX Multifunction that is only designed for local USB usage. It works great for that. The only glitch with this happened when I upgraded from Trend Internet Security Pro 2008 to 2009 a few days ago - it sometimes drops the connection to the Epson when scanning. Which points to the fault being with TIS Pro 2009. To fix the drop, I disconnect the Epson via the Belkin control console. Sometimes I also power down the Epson, power it back up. Then I reconnect to the Epson via the Belkin control console. I am buying one of these for work now since I have not been happy with our HP multifunction scanner. I am replacing HP with a simple Epson scanner that will be on the network despite being a local only product.
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| Date Reviewed: 08/16/2008 |
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Strengths: Extremely simple & quick to install. Very sleak so it can barely be seen. So easy to use your ext hard drives and printer wirelessly from ur laptop any where in the house. This thing is the bomb!
Weaknesses: Have found not one after 1 months use.
Summary: I had been trying to get my PC and my laptop, printer and external hard drives I searched and searched and while I was told ppl knew how to do it, they could never get mine to work, plus they said I had to buy a wireless printer server for multi use printers.........'well i ran uponthis not long ago and it described my very need. i can look at all my external hard drives that are hooked into my desktop and use them as i wish wwhilste on my lapptop in the other room and can also print with the touch of a button wirelessly. Only drawback is......i wish it delivered my printing into me so i wouodnt have to get up
lol
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| Date Reviewed: 02/21/2008 |
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Strengths: - Very easy to setup.
- Works like a charm.
- Highly recommended.
Weaknesses: - None so far, but we'll really see once I try to wireless connect my Dell M1530 (w/Vista) to the printer I've added to my network using this hub.
Summary: - Because of work I have a new Dell M1530, but have a need to print documents (from another room) using my printer. I tried D-Link's print server, and that really sucked. No tech support at all from D-Link and as soon as I upgraded the D-Link's firmware in hopes an upgrade would help ... the D-Link print server crashed and burned, and I returned the item. - So far I'm likin' this network USB hub from Belkin ... - But let's see how easy it is to set up my new Dell laptop (w/Vista worries).
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| Date Reviewed: 01/21/2008 |
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Strengths: Simple to install, Works as advertised, great software, 5 USB ports.
Weaknesses: None.
Summary: I really like this simple but effective Network USB. Now I have wireless (over wi fi) Printing, Scanning, and Storage. If it has a USB connection, chances are that it will work with this little gem. I have a Vista laptop and an XP desktop, and both of them are sharing all my USB devices without any problems. If you have more than one computer and many USB devices and want to share them all, buy the Belkin Network USB Hub! You wont regret it.
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| Date Reviewed: 11/25/2007 |
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 Good enough if you do not need a high transfer rate Strengths: Reasonable price + rebate. Helped me with a mess of cables - I just moved my external hard drives and PDA cradle to a corner.
Weaknesses: Very low transfer rate. Expected speed was at least 20-30 Mbps (because I have a 54 Mbps wifi router and the hub has 100 Mbps network interface), but in real the speed is about 8-10 Mbps (1-1.3 MB/s)
Summary: 2007-11-25 14:01:10 It's OK for me. In general, I am satisfied. I do not need a high transfer rate - I use my drives as a backup storage. If you need a good transfer rate then it's not for you. I did some benchmarking of my external 500 GB drive connected to the hub. The read/write speed is less than 1.5 MB/s. Direct connection speed is about 12 MB/s. So the hub is a bottleneck. Design is OK, but the size is 6.5x6.5 inches. I installed the USB Hub Control Center Software on my laptop (Windows XP) and all devices connected to the hub are visible, but sometimes the connected hard drives just disconnect with no reason.
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| Date Reviewed: 10/18/2007 |
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Strengths: Easy easy easy to set up.
Weaknesses: None yet.
Summary: Very easy to set up. Software does a great job of managing device access. I use an external hard drive, a flash drive, an iPod and a printer and I don't have any issues with any of them. New MAC client on website so I added my Macs today. Works perfectly.
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| Date Reviewed: 10/02/2007 |
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Strengths: Solves multi function printer sharing problems; very easy to set up; great looking; ability to share USB devices over the wireless network
Weaknesses: None so far
Summary: 2007-10-12 00:59:31 I bought this product hoping to be able to share a Canon multifunction printer over my home network. After a very simple set up I can not only print from the 3 PC's on my LAN but also scan and fax with no problems. The product software has to loaded on all machines on the LAN but other than that I highly recommend this product. And to top it all I still have 4 other USB ports available for sharing. For the price I paid I'm very satisfied and will look to other Belkin products for my future needs.Users having printer server headaches should consider this USB hub.
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| Date Reviewed: 09/11/2007 |
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Strengths: It helps me to share the resource for local network. Wonderful design.
Weaknesses: no
Summary: Is possible to add wireless function to replace the LAN one? Also, adding 1394 port would be better. If the price would be cheaper, I think that will attract more customer to use this. In sum, I definitely like this product, that make my digital life much better.
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