So, my trusty HP photosmart all-in-one finally gave out after 10+ years of faithful service. I need a new printer/scanner for occasional use at my house. The photosmart was set up to store the scans to a memory card which stayed permanently in the printer. I could then navigate to a network share on the printer to access the scans.
Since I already have a Windows server with several shares on it I would prefer if the new printer could save the scan directly to a share.
Also, I rarely print or scan things but when I need it, I need it so I want a scanner that is cheap, but reliable and can endure long periods with little or no use.
Are there any good, cheap printer/scanners that can scan to a network share?
Here are some guidelines on how I will use the printer/scanner:
- I will print at most maybe 10 pages a month. Possibly less.
- I will scan a mix of photos and documents. Probably around 5 items scanned a month.
- since I use it so little, the most I am willing to spend is $100. If it costs more than that, I will just get a cheap all-in-one and use it with the memory card like I did the previous printer.
- printing from iOS devices is a plus.
- it will be connected to the network via Ethernet. No wifi required. All user interaction to scan should be on the scanner itself. I do not want to have to log into a computer and initiate the scan from the computer.
- keep in mind that the Windows server is constantly running but no one is logged in. While I would prefer a solution that does not involve installing software on the server, I will if I have to, but it must run as a Windows service.
I could store the scans on a memory card in the printer and write a Windows service myself that polls the printer to see if there are any new scans and copies them to the share, but that seems like overkill because I probably will not use the scanner even on a weekly basis.
Please help me find something that meets my criteria.
