ET One of the most basic reasons to install a network is to share peripherals, including hard disks and printers. Sharing printers means only a few PCs need have printers attached, instead of each user having his own printer. Users send their documents, spreadsheets, and reports to the print server. Because the print server handles all the printing requirements for the group, the number of expensive printers can be reduced, and printing may be faster. Once at the print server, the jobs are entered into a queue, where they wait for the printer to become available.
Queues are just what they sound like - waiting lines for access to the printer.
For a print server to handle multiple jobs at the same time, it must have a print spool . A spool is hardware and software that controls a buffer. The buffer is memory that holds data. One or more print jobs may wait in the buffer while the printer is working on another job. Often, print jobs are spooled to the print server's hard disk.