Customer Reviews

Keyspan US-4A 4-Port USB Server (12 Mbps)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I opened the packing box 10 MINUTES AGO, and both of my printers are up and running on every PC.

I was a little worried when I saw the 'documentation' was smaller than a CD, but everything went off without a hitch:

Step 1: Power up the USB server with no USB device hooked up to it, and connect it to the network via RJ45.
Step 2: Install the software (if WinXP, use the unsigned drivers). Your OS searches the network at this time and finds the USB Server.
Step 3: Hook up your USB devices.

THAT'S IT!!!

If you have a Multi-Function printer, you NEED this device, because even if you find a compatible print server, it will only let you use the print function. A Printer Server turns your Multi-Function printer into a Uni-Function Printer.

With this device, it will be just as if the printer were directly connected to your PC. In fact, you are not limited to PCs; you can connect ANY USB device to it (camcorder, scanner, webcam, even a mouse or keyboard).

The ONLY advantage that a print server has over this device is that with a server, multiple PCs can control a target device at once (really, that's not quite true, since the requestes are put in a queue).

With the USB server, every PC uses a little administration program. When launched, it opens a window that lists all of the devices that are connected to the USB server. A PC on the network that wants to use a device (i.e. print) needs to first take command of that device. You just select the device by name, and hit the connect button. From that point on, it's as if the printer were plugged directly into your PC. Others trying to use the printer would see that you were subscribed to it; they would have to wait until you release the subscription - which you have to do manually.

They could really use a virtual queue that keeps checking until the subscription is open, then releases the subscription when the job is completed. The problem is that if the device isn't a printer, how does it know when the job is finished?

So, even if you have only one PC on the network, you need to request access to use the printer. On the (sort of) bright side, every time you power up the PC, it will remember who owns what. I think the memory is maintained in the USB Server itself, not the PC. So if a PC takes control of a device, then dies, cycling power on the server releases all devices.

This is a little hokey (they claim they MIGHT fix it in a later release) but it's 1000% better than losing printer functions you paid for. They have an 'Admin' panel on the software, but I don't think it currently lets you boot someone off of a device.

If you already installed the devices you want to share, then once you connect to the server, every device will show up by name. When you take control of one or more of the devices, Windows goes through the 'new device ready' popup.

If you haven't added the device to your PC, then the server will show a default name for the device. Once you take control of it, Windows will detect the PnP device, and start the 'add new hardware' wizard.

It's truly as if the USB server didn't exist, and you had a REALLY long USB cable.

I have a Canon i950 Photo Printer, and a Brother 9600 MFC.

The Brother is particularly painful in that it won't even work with most printer servers. In fact, Windows XP doesn't even have a dedicated driver for it; Brother has all but stopped supporting it.

I was highly skeptical, but the MFC's scanner worked right away. As for the Canon, I launched the Status Monitor, and was soon seeing I had to replace an ink cartridge. So, the USB server is bi-directional, too (most Print servers aren't).

It took me longer to write this review than it took me to get the server up and running.

I can't recommend this product highly enough!

Despite the rave reviews for this product, I'm a bit more skeptical. I recently purchased an HP LaserJet 3015 MFC and wanted to use this device to connect to our office network. A couple of thoughts:

1. Toms Networking does a comparison between this product and Silex's SLX SX1000U. I would strongly suggest anyone thinking about buying this product to read the article. The article can be found at:

[...]

2. Although Silex's product only has one USB port, you *can* connect a USB hub to support up to 15 devices. The KeySpan device supports 4 devices, but you cannot add more devices.

3. I found that the unit would experience problems if I submitted a print job greater than 7 MB through the KeySpan. I reset the printer and nothing got fixed. Only when I power cycled the KeySpan did things work. I am using the latest version, v1.3.1, which also upgrades the KeySpan firmware.

4. Toms Hardware also reports that it would crash with several different devices. I read on other web sites that the Keyspan software causes the blue-screen-of-death (IRQ_LESS_THAN_EQUAL errors), so I tend to believe that the problem is caused more by the Keyspan drivers than the HP ones.

5. In some parts of its web site, KeySpan advertises that this unit supports USB v2.0, but if you read the fine print it's supporting at USB v1.1 speeds.

6. I discussed with KeySpan about connecting external hard drives. This unit is really meant for multi-function printers and cannot support external HD's.

7. I decided to return this product and try out the Silex instead. Although there is a lot of potential for this device, I would not suggest it for enterprise environments. I read the glowing Amazon reviews but would put more skepticism about their comments now that I have tried it for myself.

8. I will update this review later when I have a chance to try the Silex unit.

It's been 10 minutes after I posted my last review...

In that time, I have installed the latest software and updated the firmware. The two really took me about 5 minutes.

The update adds a nice feature for single-PC networks. If a device is labeled a single-user device, then you don't need to take control of it every time you want to use it.

I also found out that it is possible to boot others off the server (actually everyone).

If you go to the Admin tab on the server SW, and edit the server settings (something simple like a password change), it will reboot the hardware (not your PC), which will disconnect all shared devices. This is a rather brute-force approach, but the manual doesn't indicate any other way.

Even after an extra 10 minutes of use, I think this device is the best thing since a USB thumb drive (which you can connect to the server as well).

This thing is just TOO COOL!!!!

- end of gushing -

I've had one of these for a year or so now and it's a great product - recommended. It definitely does support external hard disks, and most other things I've plugged into it.

My setup is:

Wireless network from laptop to Netgear wireless router/ADSL modem

USB server plugs into one of the network ports on the router

USB devices that work fine:

- HP multifunction printer/scanner

- Western Digital 120GB USB hard disk

- Old Palm III cradle, plugged through a Gembird serial-USB adaptor cable

- digital camera USB

It's not perfect and the s/ware is a bit flaky at times, but since downloading the latest s/ware and firmware it's much better than it was initially - now generally pretty stable.

Issues I've had (all these happened more often with the earlier s/ware than they do now):

- occasionally printing or transferring v. large files will crash

- occasionally the laptop won't connect to the USB server on boot up, and the USB server needs to be power cycled to fix. (but then I have to power cycle my router too periodically...)

- scanner works other than the 'scan' button on the scanner itself, which is meant to launch the scan dialog on the PC when pressed. You have to invoke the scan dialog from the laptop.

- It is USB 1.1 so transferring huge files is slow. For video editing I plug the HDD directly into my laptop, but for most other stuff it's perfectly usable across the network.

- USB hubs are still not supported, I think, so you are limited to 4 devices at once.

If you can live with the limitations and occasional glitches, which I certainly can, it's a great device that does exactly what I'd been looking for for ages, which is wireless access to USB devices.

I'm not terribly pleased with Keyspan at this point. (I'd take some stars off, but they won't allow me to edit that, apparently.) I was highly impressed when I first bought the USB server. My opinion of the company and their products has gone steadily downhill since then.

The latest non-beta software update for Mac seems to have some issues with saving preferences. The beta version of the update, which is a universal binary for Intel or PowerPC Macs, has bigger issues. I installed it on my Intel-based MacBook, which caused the fan to start running at high speed as a rogue process started running away. I had to remove the driver. It's fortunate that I know where to find everything to remove, because they don't provide an uninstaller for the latest version, even though they say they do.

It's not easy to get their support people on the phone. When you do, it seems like you're interrupting something. I think their online support requests are for looks only. I've never been able to get anything useful out of them. My last request for support received one response asking for more information. I've heard nothing since.

I'm hopeful that Keyspan can get their problems figured out soon. I'm not buying anything else from them until they do, though.

Hi. I find this product to be very good, but also could find features that need improvement.

First of all, I bought this stuff last year and returned it because our laptops couldn't recognize it in the netwrok. Later, I remembered that XP SP2 patches had been installed on our machines just before I tried to use the keyspan server. Since SP2 automatically turns on XP's firewall function, our laptops perhaps failed to recognize the USB server because of this. I wasn't wrong. When I re-bought and installed the USB server later, I reconfigured the security options of XP on my laptops so that the firewall doesn't block the port used by USB Server. Voila, I could see the list of the USB equipments connected to this little gizmo.

Once I configured it right, I found out that this thing is very convenient for just everything. Here are my equipments attached to it: a CDRW, an FDD, an external HDD, and a printer. All these gadgets are working seamlessly now.

However, besides the above configuration problem, I have experienced one or two problems so far. (If I haven't, I would've given 5 stars to this stuff.) When my EPSON 5200 all-in-one died of clogging problem and I purchased for Lexmark 5270, the autoconnect function of Keyspan USB Server didn't work with the new all-in-one very well. I strongly suspect that it's because Lexmark's poor device driver; however, it's true that Keyspan USB server is incompatible with some all-in-ones. I returned Lexmark 5270 and bought epson stylus c82. As a matter of fact, I believe that usually this goes along with epson printers and all-in-ones.

Bottom line: I recomment this machine to anyone who wants more than one PC and USB equipments. However, you need to check your PCs' firewall configuration and, when you buy this stuff or buy another USB equipment, keep your receipt for a week or two. You may have to return this stuff or, if you already have one, your new USB gizmo because of compatibility issues.

This is a nice device so long as you have a firewall you can manage. You MUST be able to manage your firewall if you use one. Otherwise don't be surprised to find this has no value to you. I bought this to use my home printer and network with my company PC. The firewall prevents the company PC from even seeing this device. Works great on the home PC after a few easy steps learning how to manage the firewall. Unfortunately, that is not why I bought it. The information on Amazon did not have this limtation. Also, the Amazon information does not indicate you must release USB devices from one PC before you can connect with another. If you can manage these issues, this is a slick device.

It was a little tweaky getting my Mac to use the server. I had to install the printer driver before running the Keyspan client. Which was hard since my Mac was not connected to the printer. But this is a Mac issue not a Keyspan issue so I gave it 5 stars.

Once installed, it is completely transparent and all 3 of my computers can print and scan.

Please note that this device does NOT work with 10.6.3 or above. Keyspan (TrippLite) has it listed under discontinued products and 10.6.3 broke the 10.5.x driver. Do NOT buy this product if you are a Mac user that is using, or is going to use, Snow Leopard. I've used this on 10.3.9-10.5.x and it works very well. It is unfortunate that TrippLite has decided to discontinue such a great product.

I have had a few of these since they were first released. However, Keyspan (now Trip-Lite) seems to have lost interest in continuing support - particularly for the Mac and Snow-Leopard. While the 10.5.x drivers might work on 10.6.0 - 10.6.3, they DO NOT WORK ON 10.6.4!!! Some people have also reported problems on 10.3.9, so some issues may be related to the specific device. However, on 10.6.4 although the USB devices show up in the Keyspan USB server management software window, they cannot actually be used.

I called Keyspan and they verified that 10.6 is not supported, that they have no plans to support it and that they are not even sure if they will continue to produce this product.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.