Silex SX-3000GB
This time we’re having a look at a rather wonderful product, well at least it should be. Of course, you’re wondering what I’m talking about and to be nice I’ll reveal it, it’s an Ethernet to USB bridge.
Cool you might think, then I can hook up a keyboard and mouse to the network and control any and all computers through one set. Well sure, you can, I didn’t think that it would work but.. yeah it does work, I was amazed!
The Silex SX-3000GB that we’re having a look at today does give you two USB 2.0 ports in which you can connect quite a lot of devices. You can even connect more than just two devices as you can hook up an USB hub to share up to a total of 15 devices at once.
Anyhow, let’s have a look at the device itself.
Inside the box we find a couple of items, a driver CD which you can use if you don’t have access to Internet on the computer you want to install the device server on, but as always we download and install the latest software from the manufacturers website. Next up we have a setup guide which is clear and easy to understand.
Furthermore we have a European style wall wart with a 12V 1A output and four self-adhesive rubber feet, I just love those but I never use them, no idea why.
The product itself is white with the Silex Technology logo on the topside. On the left hand side we have the network port, a regular RJ45 connector, which is capable of network speeds up to 1 gigabit, but have the whole spectrum as workspace 10/100/1000 as most gigabit products. Furthermore we have the power connector and a reset button.
If we have a look at the opposite side we find the two USB 2.0 ports and after that there is actually not much more to look at.
On the backside of the package we find a selection of devices you can hook up to the device server SX-3000GB. Among others you can connect memory card readers, disk drives, speakers, web cameras, scanners and also MFP printers. MFP printers and regular printers are two product categories that, could easily be configured and made ready for network connection right from the start, but most often the manufacturers see this as a premium feature and make you pay more than you have to if you want network connectivity.
More and more printers comes with network connectivity built-in these days, but they are still a little bit different when it comes to installation and I guess some people might not want it either.
If you are one of those looking for a solution to convert, for example, your printer to be accessible on your network, no matter if it’s a small home network or a SMB (small to medium business) the SX-3000GB should be able to do the work. If it actually does, is up to our tests on the next page.
