networking question

[mark in tx]

I am in the process of deciding on the specs for a network, what I want to arrive at is 3 graphics workstations networked to a file server and to a print server.
The file server should be self explanatory, the print server will got to a Versacamm 540, 2 vinyl cutters, and a laser printer for proofs.
The print server will have flexi pro on it for the RIP and for the vinyl cutting. The 3 workstations will also have Flexi Pro.
This little network will not be connected to the internet.

Before I get on the phone with Scanvec, Roland, and my computer nerds, has anyone done anything similar to this, or what did it take to make it work?

[Fred Weiss]

My experience may not be relevant since you are using Flexi. I did it with a Gerber system and ended up having to make a lot of changes once we tracked down the reasons we had certain problems. They were related to the dongles and the wrong ones being mistakenly seen by the software which resulted in jobs halting printing before completing. We ultimately stopped using the print server and just setup our devices as shared with each device connected to its own workstation. It eliminated all our stoppages with the only disadvantage being that the workstation had to be up and logged in for its device to be available to the other workstations.

I would take a look at an external network drive as an alternative to a file server. We switched to a Maxtor 200GB a couple of months ago and love it. It's fast, has a tiny footprint and is totally silent. It also has a USB 2 port if we wanted to attach a standard external hard drive to it for backups or additional capacity. We bought it from Tiger Direct for about $240.

[JMDigital]

If you are going with a nas get this one
http://www.netgear.com/products/details/SC101.php

fill it with 2 drives (200gig or so) and the system with mirror them . Its one of the few I have seen that does the mirror.. you would not want a 200 gig network storage box to blow a hard drive and have no backup.

[mark in tx]

Thanks for the suggestions on the file server alternative.
The big thing I am trying to move away from is printers, etc.. being shared out from one machine.