Digitus DN-13007, User Manual

Page: 54 / 87

54
Chapter7 The NetUSB Technology
7.1 Introduction
The goal of Digitus DN-13007/DN-13008/DN-13018 USB MFP server is to provide the
print/scan/file server in a single product. For printers and scanners, there is no
industrial standard. In order to support many different models of printers and
scanners from various vendors, one way is putting so many printer/scanner drivers
into a single product. Obviously this is very hard and not practical. We have developed
a new technology, called “NetUSB”, to solve this problem. With the NetUSB technology,
it is not necessary to implement printer/scanner drivers in Digitus
DN-13007/DN-13008/DN-13018. Actually, DN-13007/DN-13008/DN-13018 relies on
printer/scanner drivers that are installed on PCs. By the way, in the field of traditional
network print server, the common protocols used are, for example, SMB/CIFS, LPR,
raw TCP, and IPP. However, in order to reduce cost, many printer vendors produce
so-called GDI or host-based printers. For technical reasons, these kinds of printers
can not work with the traditional network printer protocols. The NetUSB technology
can also deal with the problem. The basic concept and the usage of NetUSB will be
introduced in this chapter.
In summary, DN-13007/DN-13008/DN-13018 has a totally different technology,
“NetUSB”, to deal with printers and scanners (MFPs).
A.
For printers, some special kinds of printers, such as GDI printers or host-based
printers, can not work well with traditional print server technology as described in
the previous chapters. Users should use the NetUSB technology to deal with these
kinds of printers.
B.
For MFPs or scanners, the NetUSB technology is able to support almost all models
from all MFP/scanner vendors..
C.
For USB mass storage, such as USB hard drives and flash drives and card readers
on some kinds of MFPs, users can also use the NetUSB technology to access them
in single-user mode. By this way, NTFS file system is supported for read/write. To
use the NetUSB technology to access storage, please set the storage access mode
to NetUSB mode. Please refer to chapter 8 for how to set the storage access
mode.
Note: The default storage access mode is server mode.
7.2 Connect & Disconnect
“NetUSB” allows you to use USB printers or USB MFPs as if they were connected
directly to your PC although they are actually connected to the USB MFP server. The
“connect” operation is a software operation that simulates an actual USB device
plug-in. That is to say, when you do a “connect” operation in the Control Center, PC
can then detect a USB device’s plug-in, although actually you do not plug in any USB
device. Similarly, the “disconnect” operation is a software operation that simulates the