How many printer can I host on an Apple server 10.6.8 in ServerAdmin Print service?

Question

I had 53 printers recently (two weeks ago) on our printserver and kept getting the error message:
"The service has encountered an error. Try to refresh the view (printserver.local/Print). (kNetworkError)"
This message would come up multiple time while loading the Print service or the Printer queues in Print service.
I had 20 printers setup on this same server last school year and had no problems.
When we redesigned our network this summer, I had to setup the printers again as the IP addresses had changed.
after adding the original 20 printers and adding the other 30, I then started to notice an obvious slow down in ServerAdmin app while loading the Print service and the Print queues.  The grey gear wheel showing that the system is processing, would never stop spinning.
It would take up to 20 minutes for the Print queues to load and even after they did load the gear wheel never stopped spinning.
When I would attempt to make a change in any Printer queue i.e. selecting a print protocol (SMB, LPR), the system would not Save the change even though the system allowed me to click the Save button.
So, any suggestion on how many printers I can effectively Host on an Apple server 10.6.8+?
Thanks,
Vince

Answer 1

Hi
I think your main problem may lie here:
"When we redesigned our network this summer, I had to setup the printers again as the IP addresses had changed"
Correctly resolving DNS is crucial for OS X Server's reliability and robustness of services. It needs it simply to resolve it's own name to its IP Address regardless of what service your running. If when making the changes to your network you made no allowances for this then you will experience this:
"The grey gear wheel showing that the system is processing, would never stop spinning."
With increasing regularlity.
To answer your question AFAIK you can add as many printers as the USB bus can support. If these are networked printers you're adding, and if it was me, I would not add them to OS X Server's Print Service.
HTH?
Tony