Can one windows print server handle 50+ printers or is there any free solution that can be used to manage printers
Posted by jbala28@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 42 comments
Hi Team,
Management team is looking move bunch of remote location file/print servers to one center server at the main office. Just want to check if anyone has managed 50+ printers on one virtual machine without issues or used any other free solution. Paid solution is not option at the moment.
What we currently have.
We have 8-10 remote sites with each sites having virtual machine acting as file and print server.
Now Management want to all printers installed on one Windows server vm. I just want make sure that I would not be running into any major issues or any alternative solution.
I'm worried if I have to restart printer spooler services I would loose all the jobs running or pending multiple printers or printing issues like delay printing,etc.
Let me know your thought.
Regards
Inn0centSinner@reddit
A single server could handle 50 printers but my concern is now it's becomes a single point of failure where nobody can print. Unless it's to save money by managing less servers, I wouldn't do it.
itguy9013@reddit
We have print servers that run hundreds of print objects with very few issues. Mostly Laserjet Enterprise and Ricoh MFP's.
AniBMagal@reddit
50 printers on a single Windows print server is honestly nothing. I’ve seen single print servers handle hundreds without issue as long as the VM has decent resources and the drivers aren’t garbage. Your biggest problem won’t be printer count, it’ll be bad vendor drivers crashing the spooler. Use type 4/class drivers wherever possible and avoid old universal drivers unless you absolutely need them. Also if these are remote sites printing locally, be careful routing print jobs back across WAN links because large print jobs can get ugly fast. If a spooler restart happens, yes active jobs can get interrupted, but that’s pretty rare on a stable setup. I’d honestly be more concerned about creating a single point of failure for every site. Personally I’d centralize management with GPO/deployment but keep print servers regional or per-site if printing is mission critical.
ADynes@reddit
Definitely been there. Now the print server is located in HQ along with 3/4 of the users. They get normal shared printers. All the remote offices get direct IP printing to their own printers that are pushed through gpo. Soooooo much better and gpo makes it pretty easy to impliment.
Coldsmoke888@reddit
Direct IP is the way. We are moving all printers to this, even industrial label printers.
ccatlett1984@reddit
you don't even need to do direct ip printing:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-r2-and-2012/jj134156(v=ws.11)
Soggy-Attempt@reddit
This
Happy_Kale888@reddit
printing issues like delay printing well how robust is the connection to the remote sites...
What problem are you trying to solve cost of the server or... Depending on volume and licensing you have
https://www.papercut.com/products/free-software/mobility-print/
or Microsoft of course has a solution that replaces print servers
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/universal-print?
dhardyuk@reddit
Whilst a windows server will happily cope given the correct resources you could look at serverless printing using something like Cirrus.
I implemented their UK cloud solution for GovPrint and was very impressed with their platform and how it performed.
Really easy user management, excellent approach to admin MFA - they send email codes so if your admin account has been suspended you can’t login, not MS authenticator bollocks.
If you need to consolidate your print servers it’s not much more effort to ditch all of the servers.
Metroid413@reddit
50 isn’t a lot, provided you’re not using unique drivers for a bunch of printers. Universal drivers are the way is possible.
Djblinx89@reddit
We use Papercut for centralized queues that require a badge card be swiped at the printer for job releases. We've had up to 30 printers on a single print server VM. We just follow the Papercut hardware recommendations, which are less than one would think, and we have had zero issues. You should be fine.
angrydeuce@reddit
+1 for Papercut. The amount of prints declined by almost half once we instituted badge release.
Teachers would send a 25 page packet times 30 copies to a printer on the wrong floor and then just reprint to the one they meant to and let the other shit sit abandoned. This was a nontrivial sum of money being wasted because people didnt want to walk up or down a flight of stairs, or ride an elevator from one floor to the next lol
progenrule@reddit
50 is nothing for a single print server
qkdsm7@reddit
100-200 can be no problem.
Moving from lan to wan..... would bring up more questions/ limits....
That 50 page pdf PS job that turns to 300mBytes.... well... it can be fine on a 500mbit link, not so fine at 50.
Confident_Guide_3866@reddit
We have hundreds of printers on a single vm
No_Yesterday_3260@reddit
Doesn't really take much ressources, should be possible - You just have to be REALLY ontop of the drivers, PrintNightmare etc.
But specifically drivers - Doesn't take much for them to act weird.
Had to spin up a new server because a driver had just borked and just couldn't figure out which one.
Also plotters having their own life - Experienced a few where we had to install them locally instead.
So yeh - Maybe having a clone to test on, before rolling out to everyone, when adding new printer drivers. :)
Smart-Document2709@reddit
I’ve had no issues with 120 printers on one VM, just a print server, paper cut, equitrac, etc…
Nonaveragemonkey@reddit
Cups. Its picky about what printers, because not many folks make printer drivers on Linux... but it works for a shit ton of printers
fuzzylogic_y2k@reddit
I would urge management to pilot one site before committing to this. I sort of have this in my environment with Citrix but that is only a 1 way job. Not feeding from and then back to a remote site.
Nexzus_@reddit
Be mindful of bandwidth and latency. It may only be a 2MB document, but it still generates a lot of printer data.
fuzzylogic_y2k@reddit
Yeah that 2MB shoots to 60 really fast.
InspectorGadget76@reddit
I've run 250 on a single VM (4vCPUs, 8GB) and it was idling.
As long as you don't offload the print processing to the server you should be good.
Just stick a DNS alias in front of it, so if you do have a failure/upgrade etc, cutting over to a replacement box is easy.
bygrob@reddit
Vasion.com
SlaVKs@reddit
Hi — I can take a $5 first pass on this today. If you share the exact error/screenshot + the 1 result you want, I’ll point to the cause and either send the small fix or clear patch steps.
sc302@reddit
Keep in mind that bandwidth across sites may be affected. Print jobs are sent in raw format, uncompressed. A 400kb pdf could be multiple GB raw. It would have to go to your central server then back to the printer. I would advise against that.
I would invest in a solution like uniflow where printer management is decentralized/in the cloud and print jobs maintain a compressed state. People would have to enter a pin or badge in to be able to print their stuff. Papers left at the printer for pickup for days no longer happens.
https://www.uniflowonline.com/en/home/
ReptilianLaserbeam@reddit
50 is honestly a small number. Talk more about 500
Cl3v3landStmr@reddit
We have just under two dozen print servers. The one with the fewest queues has ~80. The most has over 400. ~8,800 total printers.
vermyx@reddit
I have a 2016 print server with 8GB of RAM and about 150 printers on it. The only time I have to restart the spooler service is if someone sends a large image or missized pdf to our sharp copier because the driver decides to do weird things. Otherwise the printers are a mix and use HP universal print driver, cannon universal print driver zebra label and tag printers, intermecs, and godexes and for the most part only gets touched on patches or the mentioned sharp issue
Commercial_Growth343@reddit
no issue with that number. I worked at a place that used a central server in HO, to support printers in remote field sites, and can tell you from experience you might want to turn 'bi-directional support' off on those print queues for the remote sites. It will speed up printing. My second recommendation, regardless of remote or not, is to move that print queue to a 2nd disk (D: drive) so massive spool jobs can't crash the server.
caspianjvc@reddit
Are you going to use the print server to just deploy drivers and print direct to the IP of the printer using GPO? I would not send print jobs over a WAN. It will be slow to print. We personally ditched this years ago and use printer logic. It just works and worth every cent.
aguynamedbrand@reddit
> Windows print server licensing requires a base Windows Server license (based on physical cores) and active Client Access Licenses (CALs) for every user or device accessing the network print server. There is no standalone "print server" CAL; standard core CALs cover file and print sharing.
Biohive@reddit
Yes. But also it can't even handle 1 printer reliably because print drivers and Microsoft are like hurting cats.
Make sure to assign some cores to it and watch the
printfilterpipelinesvcprocess.thenew3@reddit
How often does the links to those sites go down, is it important to have printing when the site to site link is down? Do you have sufficient bandwidth to those sites?
jbala28@reddit (OP)
Link does not go down often and printing is important but would not be categories as like "I need it work now" it would be ok if its down for couple of hours.
konoo@reddit
Only 50? That's light work my guy..
Dave_A480@reddit
50 printers is no big deal, but I'd rather do that with Samba or something open-source than actual-Windows.
FastFredNL@reddit
Windows Server does not have a limit for the amount of printers installed with the printerserver roll installed. We have over a 100 but we also use Thinprint in between the user and the native printer driver.
BoysenberryDue3637@reddit
Had a 2x8 with 500 or so printers. Some of them actually existed, a bunch not so much.
steak1986@reddit
Used to run 200 or so before we killed windows hosting printers. Moved over to printerlogic. As the server guy i love it. Cloud based so I tossed over to client services and I dont deal with printers anymore. No more "stop everything and clear a printer queue, or restart the spooler because the queue is not clearing"
ajf8729@reddit
It's not the number of printers, it's the number of drivers. I've managed print servers hosting hundreds of queues, but the key is minimal drivers and thus the amount of printer models you support. Driver isolation is also key, you don't want one crashed queue to take down everything.
zantehood@reddit
No experience with print spooling; but i guess it would depend on the specs of the server
Chareon@reddit
It'll depend on the resources allocated to your VM, but otherwise 50 printers is no big deal.