Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Good Gigabit 802.11N Home Router?
nukem996 writes "This week I will be moving into a new apartment with a very fast Internet connection (100M with the possibility of 200M in the future). I'm used to running OpenWRT on my Linksys WRT54G router and would like a well supported router to replace it. While researching routers I found most reviewers were using the default firmware and since I'll be putting on OpenWRT I'd like to know how well it works when using that. My requirements are gigabit LAN and WAN, 802.11N at 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, well supported by OpenWRT and/or DD-WRT, and USB support would be nice. I was thinking of going with BUFFALO WZR-HP-AG300H but some reviewers say there are range and dropping issues. My ISP suggests the Apple Airport Extreme which isn't supported by OpenWRT or the D-Link 825 which has connection problems as well and a few friends told me to stay away form D-Link. What does slashdot think?"
had DLINKs for years and they do lock up with power bumps but otherwise no problems.
Ive got an ASUS RT-N16 running DD-WRT and found it to be a solid workhorse. Supports all the functionality you require as well.
It supports 802.11N at 2.4GHz and 5GHz, has a USB port, and supports gigabit LAN. The default firmware is a modified version of OpenWRT, and it is supported by both OpenWRT and DDWRT. It performs quite well.
I use the Netgear WNDR3700 which works quite well with OpenWRT. Having said that, really slashdot? Slow day?
This is my current router chosen because it was compatible with dd-wrt.
It isn't wholly free of issues and the initial linux firmware actually had a memory leak in the httpd service. Depending on how much free time you want to invest you can move away from the stable build and roll your own dd-wrt or open-wrt. The leak was corrected fairly quickly after the initial release.
It can get prissy if it runs for a few weeks, but I have always used nightly restarts to mitigate any long term issues. TBH I've always had that issue with DD-WRT and I've always scheduled nightly reboots. I could probably get by weekly, but I'm rarely online at 4am.
If you are in the market for something new and stable my suggestion would be to do what I would do. Pick your poison and browse their forums. It usually isn't difficult to see what the current favorite is and where there is popularity there is generally support.
Here is my basic guideline for what to look for...
Find a supported and fairly popular device that meets your feature criteria. (External antenna, dual, chipset preference, etc)
Determine how easy it is to upgrade and prevent bricking. (Unless you want a tricky alpha procedure and have extra time)
Look at the recent release and review the initial setup instructions and upgrade instructions.
It seems like the latter two are the same. However, the first of the two is to ensure that a stable process actually exists and there are not vast reports of masonry at work. The second process is there to ensure you know what you are getting into pre-purchase. When you are looking for the shortest path to success a little ground work and notes can make the adventure entirely unadventurous.
These are by no means instructions for everyone to follow. I have at times purchased gear knowing the road ahead was going to be bumpy, but I really wanted said item to function. At the time, I didn't mind putting in the weekend to getting the device up and running. With the early Linksys device I spent some time putting together a cheap serial port and soldiered on the ttl to cmos adapter to play with the boot loader.
However, now I'm lazy and I have other projects to spend my efforts on. My guess is if you are asking these questions you don't want to take the low road either.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I've had only one D-Link product till now - An 803 adsl modem. They packed it with loads of features on the software side that the hardware clearly couldn't handle. It would hang randomly every few hours but got better when I disabled the firewall and some other stuff. Randomly slowed down and required a reboot to fix the issue. Finally crapped out a few days back and replaced it with a chinese adsl modem (tp-link) which works WAY better. Even the huawei (also chinese) that I had before the D-Link performed much better. I will never buy a D-Link again for the rest of my life!
Prepare for lots of it! First, a question. You're dropping a lot of money on a fat pipe, why are you considering consumer grade hardware? (Unless you're talking about 100Mbps divided by the entire apartment complex, which means you could be fighting that kid down the hall with a Usenet account for a shred of 1Mbps.)
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
Unfortunately for you, it's only 2.4 GHz.
Anyway, last I remembered, OpenWRT was having issues with dual-band 802.11n, though I may not have been paying very much attention, and this may have been resolved if it ever was a problem to begin with.
The best 802.11n home routers right now are the Apple Airport Extreme and the Cisco E4200. The key feature to look for is dual-band: you want to keep 802.11a/b traffic on 2.4Ghz and 802.11n on 5.0Ghz. That will allow you to achieve 802.11n's upper bound of 450 Mbps without baggage from 802.11a/b. If you want the most effortless setup, get the Airport Extreme; the accessory Airport Express devices will also allow you to extend the wireless range of your network.
I bought mine to replace my WRT54GS recently. No issues at all, and decently priced (at least where I live).
I'm running Tomato, but I presume the other router distress will work.
You'll only get 2.4GHz though.
Slashdot thinks you should build your own router using pizza boxes, empty cans of mountain dew, arduinos, and duct tape. Your use of OpenWRT is satisfactory, although coding your own router in Assembly is best.
Me, I'd just pick up whatever's in stock at the department store. I had to return one once, but otherwise they've all worked fine.
I've got a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH running the [provided!] DD-WRT firmware, and haven't had any problems.
It's also the gigabit switch between the upstairs office and the downstairs servers.
Not had a single lick of trouble, and I've got coverage throughout my 2500 sq ft house.
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
Get a cheap intel atom with dual intel nics and install pfsense 2.0 and away you go. Most Atoms are under 18 or so watts.
I gave up on finding decent routers after spending thousands of dollars trying many different devices and just built my own gateway. A Jetway Intel Atom miniITX system with a multi-Gigabit-NIC daughtercard using a Ubiquiti WLAN NIC, I added gigabit managed switches if I needed more ports.
I have a D-Link DIR-825-B1 and have seen no problems with it. I have it because it is one of the few home routers that supports IPv6. (Yes, I know that you probably don't care.) I have run DD-WRT on it and it works fine.
The unit is actually a Cameo router that D-Link re-labels.
Also, be sure that you get a Rev. B1 unit. It is Atheros based and has DD-WRT support. The A1 uses a different chip and is will not run DD-WRT or OpenWRT. The revision is clearly marked on the box.
Whether you run the standard firmware of DD-WRT, it is a full-featured box and has been very reliable with the standard firmware. DD-WRT occasionally starts running slowly and will eventually stop routing.No sign of memory exhaustion, but that is what it acts like. Reset gets it back on-line at full speed. It fails very sporadically. This is documented on the DD-WRT wiki.
Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired
I'll cast my vote for the Asus RT N16 router with the tomato USB firmware. I recently upgraded to this. Before I had a Netgear 3500 with DD-WRT and I can personally tell you the QOS of Tomato is far superior in my experience and replacing the firmware on the router was a breeze. You have to know a little about networking before you jump in and change things though and Tomato information is kinda scarce but a few hours of googling will give some good information. So far this has been the best router I have ever owned and I am loving Tomato. The only downside is it's not 5Ghz though only 2.4.
Chris Sheppard
If you don't mind going a little DIY, there is the Ubiquiti RouterStation Pro. It's a board with four GigE ports and three mini-PCI slots for wireless cards, and comes loaded with Open WRT. Look around online and you should be able to find a few places selling it with a simple case, power pack, and a wireless card for ~$150 or less. Note, I haven't used it, so I can't speak from experience. It's on my wishlist though :)
Seconded. I tried this and the WNDR3700 and Linksys (now Cisco) was much more stable.
I'm very happy with the Airport Extreme in terms of stability. I think mine has locked up maybe once in a year, which is much better going than any other consumer wifi/router device I've ever owned. I run it as the main router for my house, and PPPoE endpoint (with an ADSL modem/router in bridge mode), with 5 GHz 802.11n. A separate ultra-cheap AP runs on 2.4 GHz for iPhones and guests without 5 GHz support.
However, like many Apple products, the firmware isn't particularly user-configurable and I've not been able to get any Linux-based configuration utilities working on Ubuntu. If you don't have a Mac or Windows machine handy, changing settings and upgrading firmware would be a pain. It's also lacking PPPv6 support, at least in the version I have, so I can't join my ISP's IPv6 network without tunneling.
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
TP-Link WR1043ND where you can load also a choice of other firmwares.
And it's cheap!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
This is an issue which is more likely to effect Slashdotters than the average daily user. Many ISPs are offering 100MBps+ (in civilized countries) knowing there are factors involved such as the fact that the consumers will either never use the allocated bandwidth and there will be even less who can find suitable hardware to handle the connection.
I have personally considered in the past using KickStarter to design a SOHO Layer-3 switch with IPv6 and NAT. Wireless routers will be an issue in high bandwidth environments for a time to come since wireless routers typically use low end ARM processors and perform software based routing. Even using modern high end ARM CPUs, performing routing within software at bitrates over 60MBps is a challenge. Just the memory moves are insane.
An alternative is to use a DSP for software based routing which generally can improve performance substantially in these cases as they tend to contain a separate "Device" which they call an enhanced DMA controller, but instead is simply a device which is programmable to move memory using DMA. More advanced ones even include some scatter/gather functionality which can be useful for restamping network packets for NATing.
I can go into extensive details about how software based routers will always suffer for one reason or another and present dozens of alternative methods of implementing a SOHO (sub $300) solution to this problem, but the point is simply this. It is in fact a problem.
I can't be 100% sure whether the guys at Linksys/Cisco, Netgear, DLink etc... read Slashdot, but raising awareness to the issue may increase the awareness among these vendors to a need we "high end users" are coming across. The aging platforms from these vendors need an overhaul to support higher bandwidth and time has come which network routing is no longer really an option for strictly software based solutions. It is time we start getting consumer priced layer-3 switches with NAT, IPv6 and 6-over-4 solutions as well. The designs should include the features we expect from SOHO routers but should function as switches. This is entirely possible using low end FPGAs and using for example either an Intel Stellerton platform or possibly a Xilinx with embedded ARM would be ideal for these cases.
So, I am pretty pleased this topic has come up here. I am hoping that by the time my ISP upgrades me to 100 MBps (I'm a cheapskate... I only pay for 50up/50down, but can get 400up/400down for twice the price) I'll be able to handle the performance. At the moment, I'm using a Cisco 1900 series router which is soon to max out.
But I wouldn't go with the AGs. I have the WHR-HP-G300NH and have used it for the last two years. They're based on Atheros chipset, and assuming you're not running the user-friendly (read: buffalo's proprietary f/w for dummies) firmware on them, it is quite solid. It's held up rather well, excepting a brown out where I killed one which is my own fault for not having it on a UPS. This model has a 400mhz chip on it, so it's more than powerful enough, and with the DD-WRT firmware you can do all the ridiculous iptables routing you'd want to. I did support for these things, and the worst it ever got was people trying to hook up the WDS to another brand router (geek note: WDS only works to the same chipset). I can safely tell you that my lack of issue tickets attests to the solidity of these. On the other hand, I will bitch endlessly about Buffalo's storage products. They honestly do make good hardware, but their firm/software leaves something to be desired. WRT is the best thing they could've done with these. I have all Gb NICs on my home network (excepting game consoles) and we hammer it pretty hard with media sharing internally, along with some compiling/rendering I do for gaming/3D graphics hobby stuff. I've never had it choke.
Apple AirPort Extreme Technical Specs: "Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet". What?
Dual band, well supported OpenWRT. Decent DD-WRT support. USB. Great performance, gigabit, meets all your specs.
CPU, RAM, and Storage are listed right on the box.
There is no fancy reflashing to other OS proceedure. Pick any image of any OS you want and flash. No protection at all.
Hell the OS it ships with is (I believe) an OpenWRT derivative!
It is this generations WRT54G(GL in later years).
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
I was looking for a router a couple months ago with mostly the same requirements and settled on the BUFFALO WZR-HP-AG300H. I immediately installed OpenWRT, so I can't speak for the default firmware. Performance as an NAS is ~14 MB/s with Samba, ~5 Mbps on OpenVPN, and I've seen no dropping or stability issues.
Range isn't great, but that's probably more related to my area. 2.4 GHz is heavily congested here, but the range is slightly better than my old NETGEAR WGT 634U or PLANEX MZK-W04NU. 5 GHz is uncongested, but has inherently shorter range and with poor penetration. Either way, both signals manage to service my whole apartment without gaps from a central closet, which is better than the aforementioned two, but does not extend outside. Which is a bit odd, come to think of it... perhaps that lead paint notice when I moved in might have something to do with it...
I've got one, haven't had any issues. I use it on both bands, with wide channels on 5GHz.
My router is in my basement and I can reliably get a perfectly fine signal on my main floor 40 feet away. The 2.4GHz signal is stronger, but on 5GHz I can use double-wide channels.
Yeah the Mikrotik kit isn't bad - we use/sell them at work after having stumbled across them looking for kit for a wifi mesh a while back. They're very flexible - the feature set is huge, and you can run OpenWRT in, essentially, a virtual machine (they call it a "metarouter") on top of the RouterOS that comes with the Mikrotik Routerboard hardware.
Like anything though, they can be finicky, and you have to be careful with updates as they can quite often break one thing trying to fix another :) The OS definitely has some quirks you need to keep in mind with more complex configurations though.
They actually use a linux kernel with a mostly proprietary userland atop it, so it shouldn't be too hard getting other Linux-based router distros to work on their hardware either.
I went through several wireless routers (Linksys, D-Link, Trendnet) before getting the Netgear WNDR3700 and I love it. It wasn't cheap, but where the previous routers would occasionally fail, this one hasn't failed once since day one. And the features! IPv6, gigabit ethernet, true (not draft) N, dual bands, and I can plug in an external USB drive and make it a NAS. The firmware is slightly tweaked OpenWRT (little more than the branding) and updates come fairly regularly. The only downside was the cost, but it was cheaper than what I paid for all the crappy, failed routers I had before.
You can find an excellent source for reviews of SOHO networking gear at http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/
I am in no way affiliated with the site.
I recently bought this and can say it is the best router I have ever owned. Besides running both 2.4 and 5 GHz networks, the router is fast and stable. The two USB ports are handy as I use them to run a shared disk between all of my home machines. The only downside to the that is the USB ports are 2.0 instead of 3.0 so it is not the fastest external disk access.
I just bought it myself and installed a tomato mod on it (http://tomatousb.org/). To flash it, you first need to install a mini version of DD-WRT on it (http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Netgear_WNR3500L).
I am thoroughly impressed by the featureset you get with it.
There is some benchmarks at SmallNetBuilder you might be interested in, I've been eyeing on those for my next router.
I have a two Asus RT-N16 routers, one running DDWRT and other running Tomato USB. I have been extremely happy with them. These guys have monster specs as far as wireless routers go.
Ethernet Ports = WAN x 1 RJ-45 for 10/100/1000 Base T, LAN x 4 RJ-45 for 10/100/1000 Base T
USB ports = USB2.0 x 2
Unit RAM = 128 MB (2x 64MB - Samsung K4N511163QZ-HC25 or 2x 64MB - Samsung K4T51163QG-HCE6)
Unit Flash = 32 MB (MACRONIX MX29GL256EHTI2I-90Q)
Unit CPU = Broadcom4718A, 533 MHz (Factory clocked to 480MHz)
More at: http://dd-wrt.ca/wiki/index.php/Asus_RT-N16
I am ssh'ed into one one of them right now and trying to install webcam drivers into it. I plan to do some fun stuff, including using motion detection etc using the relatively powerful CPU in this router. Could you do anything even remotely like this with Apple Airport Extreme? No.
This is a hacker's router and smokes the competition.
BTW, openwrt is not supported on this router. But as I mentioned earlier, DDWRT and Tomato USB are. And they are both running rock solid for me. Whatever you do, do not use the Asus firmware. It's worse than junk.
You are never going to see 100mbit/s over wifi using indoor equipment. You might get 50-60mbit/s real throughput if you're lucky. Personally, I would stay away from all-in-one boxes and get a wired gigabit router running openwrt to handle all the routing and nat. Then, you can get any generic 802.11n router and configure it to run in bridge mode. You can also keep the wrt54g for 2.4ghz, running in bridge mode as well.
wrt 610n. I did try to DD WRT, but found the router ran too hot constantly for my liking. I don't have the bandwidth your getting but I've never had a problem with wireless drops, and the 610 has USB, and gigabit ports. I often see speeds of .15-2.0 mbps depending on source. I don't think anything short of something at the enterprise level will be able to meet your needs. If you can afford that level of bandwidth then you shouldn't have a problem finding the hardware you'll need. Good luck
Look, I loved using dd-wrt on my old WRT54G router too, but you shouldn't be making OpenWRT or dd-wrt a requirement for your next router unless it's an actual constraint imposed by your environment or usage, and by all accounts it isn't. Instead, you should simply be asking what the best router is that's out there, period. If that's one with your preferred firmware, great. If not, then why are you letting comfort or dogma lock you into something that isn't the best product?
If your preference for dd-wrt is strong enough that you simply can't stomach the thought of getting a router that fails to support it, then your question is really better directed at a relevant forum for the firmware where you can get your question answered by enthusiasts with direct and pertinent knowledge of your issue.
As for me, I decided I didn't want to have to deal with the nitty gritty stuff as much, so I opted for an Airport Extreme when I moved over to 802.11n. It's definitely not for everyone, but the easier setup and maintenance means more time for the stuff I really want to be doing.
I didn't read through the bazillions of comments, but after playing with a ton of the 3rd party firmwares that run on the old Linksys WRTG routers like Tomato and OpenWRT, etc., I just finally built a cheap and tiny ITX atom based box and put pfsense on it. I would never go back.
Go with Ubquiti or Mikrotik. They tend to build ISP grade WISP radios but they work quite nicely as local access points. Your find the wireless card on your laptop becomes the limiting factor as the better radios can keep many consumer grade gigabit ports too busy.
I got one for my laptop and TV and other computers that don't get their own IP (some of my stuff is on public IPs and just switched, some is behind the router). It does the trick, even with stock firmware. I haven't tested it to see if it can route a full gigabit from WAN to LAN, but it'll do more than 100mbps no problem. Has 5ghz and 2.4ghz radios, both with 3 antennas, so nice on the wireless front.
DD-WRT has WIP support for it, meaning the current beta works with it but the stable release doesn't. I've not found the need though, the included firmware is fine. Has all the features I've wanted (though to be fair I'm not that demanding of it), speed is good, and it has yet to crash.
Basically if you want high speed you want to stick with stuff that is new, and relatively highend/expensive. You need a fast CPU in the thing to do that, and that is where you'll find it. The old school real popular routers just don't have the CPU speed needed.
My needs are slightly different to yours (needed ADSL support, not prepared to have a two-box solution), but the conclusion I came to was that unless it ships (or has as an option from the manufacturer's own website) OpenWRT or a derivative thereof, you'll spend just as long fiddling with the router as you will actually using it. With the added bonus that unlike a standard PC, if something goes wrong then recovery can be fiddly at best and impossible at worst. I wound up opting for a Linksys router - they don't support F/OSS firmware any more, but I've always found the stock firmware to be perfectly stable.
By far the best cost effective gigabit router I've found is the TP-Link 1043ND. It uses an Atheros AR71XX Chipset, comes with 3 antennae, a usb port, 8MB of Flash and 32MB of RAM (which is double what most routers come with). More importantly, it can support almost all custom brands of firmware (even marks it as a feature on their website), including the best one (IMO) out there, Gargoyle. For those who don't know what gargoyle is, it comes with most of the standard features of an openWRT router. However, on top of that, it support quotas/throttling (IE, if you go over x mb of uploads you can throttle the uploading for the next hour/day/etc.). It's most important feature, however, is that it can track open connections and bandwidth usage *by ip/mac address*. IE, with this firmware, you can tell exactly who on your network is hogging the bandwidth.
Take a look at prices, by now the DIR-655 should be cheaper - we've had ours for over a year now I'm guessing.
Anything but the highest, most brutal usage brings it down. You do need to tune your Vuze settings - if you have more than 1 computer downloading torrents at a atime (try to avoid that...), setting each of their Max Simultaneous Connections to 100 and testing should work. Drop it by 25 if you're still having trouble.
Don't forget, wireless devices cannot send and receive at the same time. The DIR-655 is MIMO (IIRC), so it minimizes the drawbacks, but any individual device can still only send or receive at a time, so torrents are kinda a nightmare for wireless in general.
-Red
Guns don't kill people, "with glowing hearts" kills people.
Mine has the 'A' missing from the model number, but I cannot say I've had any issues. There are DD-WRT builds for this router that allow you to change the transmit power if you're finding that to be an issue. It also has plenty of spare flash space to install other applications if you wish, such as samba for using it as a NAS, or I've got a full suite of IPv6 tools installed on mine.
Looking @ both DD-WRT and OpenWRT, I doubt that either of them have paid serious attention to IPv6, since a lot of the scripts used seem to reference deprecated features, such as IPv4 mapped addresses.
At this point, all routers ought to have decent support for IPv6, instead of leaving it to future firmware upgrades.
I barely get 1 meg downstream. The disadvantage living in a national forest at 9000'.
My dad's house, however, they just got their cable ends re-done by Cox and now get 10-16.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
It might not support open-wrt (as far as I know) but I have gone thru 2 Linksys WRT54G routers, x1 netgear, x1 belkin, x2 dlink routers over the past 10 years. I bought the TrendNET 639GR a year or so ago and it is a fantastic wireless router. The x4 LAN ports are gigabit, and the TEW-639GR is a wireless N router. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156249
I agree with everyone who posted Netgear WNDR3700.
I went through so many routers, but the Netgear WNDR3700 was the only one that could keep up with my needs and support my router customization.
Tried different firmwares but found OpenWRT Backfire with LuCI provided to be the best.
Truly the best router/firmware you can have in the consumer range.
I like this one. It has good range and is sufficiently configurable to let me run servers at home.
If you _must_ have OpenWRT, you can stop reading.
If not, consider Mikrotik. I used OpenWRT, DD-WRT and the rest, but none of them was as good as Mikrotik. It's simply an incredible list of features the box and OS gives you, and you can easily configure it via WinBox (Wine or Windows) or simply via SSH. They have a range of products from 10/100 routers to a 9-port 10/100/1000 router/switch (see link below), where you can attached up to three wireless-cards.
See http://www.mikrotik.com/ and http://www.roc-noc.com/mikrotik/routerboard/rb493g-complete.html
(I do not live in the US, so I do not know the prices, but it's defiantly a big bang for the buck :-))
Coming from the perspective of a Sr. Network Engineer, who deals in the world of high-end routing on Cisco gear (Cat 6500/7600s), I typically recommend the Airport Extreme for the home environment. It's a solid workhorse and doesn't change models every two months so there's little confusion. I have three of these units (two back at my mother's house and another at my apartment). Have had mine for 3yrs now and they are built solid -- You won't be buying a new one every year like the average Linksys/Netgear/Dlink user does. The only drawback is that the initial setup/management is done through a fat client (Windows/Mac application) -- no web interface. The client app is capable of crossing IP subnets though, so if you're network is complex, it still wouldn't be an issue. Btw -- I'm not an Apple Fan-boy by any means to clear any potential bias. David.
You mention that you have a 100mbit internet connection and will possibly be going to 200mbit in the foreseeable future.
That right there is an issue. Lots of people on this thread recommend a lot of Open/DD WRT compatible routers, but I bet almost none of them can break 50mbit/sec sustained with SPI/NAT and a few connections.
There are only 2-3 consumer grade routers that can handle those speeds. Just because they have a gigabit WAN doesn't mean they can *process* those speeds. That's a memory and CPU issue.
If you want to actually get near those speeds, you will either need a DLink DIR-825 or a Netgear WNDR3700N. I will warn you right now, the 3700 has issues with DD/Open WRT in that the wireless has a good chance of being about useless after the flash, even if you flash back to stock firmware. Something about the DD/Open WRT wireless drivers does not play well with more 3700s and has permanently left some devices effectively with out wireless even after a reflash. I have no idea about the 825.
Both support IPv6.
The 3700 with Netgear firmware does have some of the best wireless performance in the industry. Longest range, best peak performance, best ranged performance, best penetration. It works great with Netgear's firmware.
My recommendation would be to use the 3700 as your wireless device, and get an Intel i5, put some decent NICs on it and install pfSense. A bit more expensive, but it will last a long time, be customizable, and be fast fast fast.
Rule of thumb. If you pay under $100 for a router, it's not going to break 80mbit/sec of WANLAN performance. At least not for the current generation of two of routing hardware.
Heh. I'm still using an ancient Linksys WRT54Gv4 paired up with some D-Link 5-port Gb switch. The simple layer-2 D-Link stuff works fine, and the Linksys, running the Tomato firmware, is quite configurable and keeps up with my 25Mbps FiOS uplink (the previous HyperWRT firmware only went up to 20Mbps) and does better with torrents than the somewhat high-end Actiontec router that came from Verizon.
But this ask slashdot is relevant to my interests, since someday I'd like to be at least marginally aware when something might finally provide a somewhat substantial improvement to my current setup and worth the upgrade cost :P
I personally am using a DLink DGL-4300 for Internet routing and the fifth gen Airport Express as an AP, this way I get both more network options on the Wan side AND great Wifi perfs. The DGL-4300 is pretty much impossible to find these day so go with an OpenWRT based router for your routing and use the Airport Extreme 5th Gen in bridge mode (they really improved the power and stability in the 5th gen), plus you get the added benefit of positioning the AP higher (on top of a wooden shelf or on the wall) for increased range.
I live in a downtown area and my neighbours have about 70+ wifi routers I can see (which also interfere), the 2.4 Ghz band is pretty useless nowadays, there is always a clown configuring his 2.4 Ghz on channels like 7, 3 or 9, the 802-11N 5 Ghz range is much less populated and highly recommended in an apartment configuration. Do a proper wifi inventory of your neighbour's use of channels and try to use those which cause less interference, and if all your devices support N just turn off the 2.4 Ghz antenna.
I used the Linksys E3000 and it works well. The only issue I found is it seems to run a little hot. I lifted it off the flat surface by putting small blocks underneath it so that it can dissipate heat from the bottom. It has never locked up on me or anything due to heat or anything. It just seems to get pretty warm.
I have one. Wireless just shuts off randomly every day, and under heavy load. Not all of them do this, but if you get one, there is no known fix. Does it both on stock firmware and DD-WRT. Netgear forums are littered with reports of it. I'm getting an Asus RT-N16 today to replace it.
It is not supported by custom firmware, but sure is a solid router. It has an 802.11n Access Point, Gigabit switch and ADSL2+ modem (but you can use any WAN connection using an 10/100/1000 ethernet port as well).
It's Gigabit switch gives the best performance I could find, for consumer grade equipment.
It has a feature called "E-WAN", allowing you to use one of the ethernet ports for a WAN connection instead of a LAN connection, instead of using the built-in ADSL2+ modem (you can also set it up as a fall-back).
What I really like about these routers is that Billion provides stock firmware that gives you most of the features that you would expect to find in a custom firmware (including VLANs and IPv6), and even better is that they push out regular firmware updates to add more and more features all the time.
If you want something to play with, hack with, and get your hands dirty with embedded Linux - Get something that supports a Custom Linux Firmware. Custom Linux Firmware is not bad by any means (Usually it is poor underlying hardware that leads to instability), and it is a great learning experience that has given me a lot of knowledge.
If you want something to give you a solid internet connection, solid Gigabit LAN performance, and lots of features that you wouldn't usually expect from a stock firmware - get the 7800N.
I run 2 Linksys 600n routers in my house and they work great. They have up to 5 usable gigabit ports, a 2.4 and a 5ghz n capable radios and USB support. I'm running DD-WRT on both with no issues. The only down side is they are not JTAG-able, so you have to be careful when flashing, but they make for a decent setup.
AJ Henderson
Some Dlink routers are not bad at all. I had a WBR2310 that was absolute garbage. Switched for a Linksys, then later got a Dlink DIR655 which is fantastic. Their newer model the DIR855 has horrible reviews and is probably not worth it. I would say Dlink is not bad as long as you properly research user forums about the model you are looking at first.
Specs:
http://www.asus.com/Networks/Wireless_Routers/RTN16/#specifications
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
Its funny I replaced my 1st of 2 WRT54GL's at home after a series of constant drops over the course of a last few months. Here's the story: Internet connection is upstairs while everything else is in my man-cave downstairs. I used 2 WRT54GLs in WDS mode for about 5+ years and life was good. I noticed when I got my new work laptop (now with N) home my laptop connection dropped alot more of my network at home would start dropping. Of course the work laptop wsa the biggest culprit while I was streaming things via NetFix downstairs and/or doing other misc items downstairs. It would be a major bombshell when my buddy came over with his laptop (also N powered) and as soon as he booted up his network and attached. BAM! Network Down! At first I thought it was some kind of Dell issue (insert Dell jokes here). So after 6 months of being annoyed I broke down and got the exact Wifi product you mentioned in this article. I did read alot of people say 'it drops wireless alot' . Well I would think that would be of ANY product that you buy. There could've been a bad batch or some other item in your house really dicking w/ wireless signal (A really crappy microwave,etc.) So I bought this buffalo router and I installed it s my primary AP while will keeping a legacy WRT54GL downstairs and attaching it via WDS mode. Suffice to say that I am extremely happy with this product. I've had ZERO drops and by god I have about 19 wireless devices I have attached to test this (Droid phones, IPhones, Wiis, 360, PS3, PCs, Laptops, and a Tablet). While doing my netflix and other bittorrent activitie I even decided to transfer some TV episodes from my laptop to my main PC. Suffice to say a 5gb transfer over wireless is painful no matter what speed. But suffice to say during the test transfers not once did my wireless signal drop. SSH Sessions and windows file copies are extremely sensative and only work on a stable connection. Also regarding Buffallo-Tech product they are HUGE in Japan. They are the Cisco/Linksys of wireless products in Japan. I know because I go there all the time and I always dive into their electronics scene checking out their stuff. So like star wars "What does your heart tell you". Just roll with it and test the crap out of it. You have at least a good 15day return policy depending on where you get it from. I decided to get mine via Fry's B&M just in case it didnt work and I can return it. I'll say this I got this version and for an xtra $30 you can get the version of this that seperates out the B/G & N Channels. Just all depends on how much wireless you are doing. Also depends on your setup. If you sit at home with one wireless AP then you should be quite ok. My setup is much more specialized and needed more work given the architecture of my home.
There's no Freedom like UFP-dom
I saw your question in my RSS feed, and my immediate inclination was to offer up the DIR-825 as the solution you're looking for. While I can cop to having had some issues with wireless connectivity, they seem to be more pronounced only when I'm through several walls, one of which is concrete block, and are more pronounced on the 2.4 GHz bands. 5 GHz mode seems to work quite well.
;)
Whatever you choose, your basic guideline ought to be the unit's CPU speed. Coming from WRT54G/L devices to the D-Link unit, I experienced a move from a router with a 200 MHz Broadcom chip to a 625(ish) MHz Atheros chip. The difference is night and day. I got used to DD-WRT taking many seconds to move from tab to tab as I click around in the web GUI for it from the Linksys devices. The D-Link router doesn't do that at all. The experience is really like it should be, with performance on par with a local web app. Very, very wonderful piece of hardware, from what I've experienced with it.
Add grains of salt as you desire, but that's my two cents
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
The big problem with dLink is their abysmal tech support. If you know what you're doing as far as setting up the router and the wireless they're fine. I've had 2 dLinks (but not Wireless-N) and the first one had wireless drop issues that were resolved by a firmware flash update, and the other has never given me any trouble at all.
One requirement that you don't mention is IPV6 support. Don't just assume that any home router sold nowadays supports it. Many still don't, or are you planning on getting that support from DDWRT or openWRT? Supposedly dLink is one of the better brands for IPV6 support, although that is just from random news articles (regurgitated press releases?) I've seen around the net.
We are the 198 proof..
I know some will probably hate this suggestion, but at a certain point, why not just run wire? If you can't do the run yourself, you could hire somebody to install it for a hundred or two hundred dollars at most. For that money you could probably get wire run to a few places in your home.
That's what I've done. I use wire when I need to do bandwidth-intensive activity, and I use wireless when I'm not near wire (which is almost exclusively when I'm doing low-bandwidth stuff). Do file transfers, torrents, and the like via wire. Besides, the speed you can get out of GigE wire is a lot faster than you will get out of any wireless at this point. Remember also that wireless is half duplex (i.e. the speed is shared for both directions, and indeed for everyone using it). Wire is your own and is dedicated to you. If you have a server, you can talk to your server at GigE speeds and not affect the Internet traffic for the other users one tiny bit.
One other thing worth considering, if you have technical ability, is some of the small single-board computers (I use an Alix 2D3). Hook up a good consumer router with DHCP turned off, and use that for WiFi (I use a Linksys WRT54G). Don't use the router's WAN port. Let the single-board computer do all the work for you. The only limiting factor on mine is that the wired Ethernet ports are 100BaseTX so I'd be maxed out with a 100 megabit Internet connection, but in my part of the world such a connection is not imminent so I have a lot of room to expand. I'm sure gigabit SBCs are available now or will be soon. With a quarter gig of RAM and a 600 MHz Geode processor, mine twiddles its thumbs even when I max out my Internet connection (plus I have about 15 OpenVPN tunnels running on it). It was a terrific investment.
What you want is to use the Airport Extreme as a wireless bridge, then use your dd-wrt based device as the internet gateway.
That way, you don't have to deal with the lack of QoS and the "reboot when changing NAT/port forwarding" feature of the AE firmware. You get a really high-speed wireless access point. And you get all the features of dd-wrt that you know and love.
It's got GigE on the WAN/uplink, so that may slow you down if you're doing a lot of wireless/wireline traffic.
As others have posted on this forum, the Asus RT-N16 router is one of the best routers ever made and has more capability than most users will ever take advantage of. Probably the only thing lacking from the router is dual-band support. It has: 1) Four Gigabit LAN ports. 2) Three external DETACHABLE antennas. 3) 2 USB Ports I have run both DD-WRT on them and Tomato USB -- and personally I find Tomato a bit more stable and easier to live with. The USB support in Tomato is also much better and MUCH easier to configure for Samba filesharing and printer support (i.e. you can do it via the UI). My own personal favorites right now would be either the main Tomato USB branch or the Tomato-RAF fork (which is what I am running). The only real flaws with the RT-N16 are that it can run a bit warm when under a heavy CPU load (which is generally only the case if you are using it for things other than just as a basic router) and that the supplied AC "wall-wart" adapter is a bit wimpy. Simple fixes -- make sure the room you put the RT-N16 in is air conditioned and don't stack anything on top of it. Also, if you are going to be running a lot of other software on the RT-N16 (or leaving USB powered flash drives plugged in all the time) get another AC adapter with the same voltage but higher amperage ($10 off Ebay). Though it is probably no necessary for most people, it is also very easy to pop the hood on the RT-N16 and add better heatsinks to the chips and processor. I also added a fan on mine. The reasons I needed to add the extra fan and such on mine is that I have the poor little thing overloaded a bit -- I've got the transmitter pumped up to max (60 is the max setting in Tomato for the RT-N16 -- beyond that the actual measured output curve remains flat), much larger antenna's installed, two large USB flash drives attached for use with Optware and for local storage, and I have loaded Asterisk 1.8 with Google Voice support and it's currently serving as the VOIP server and voicemail system for my home (I've got a couple of Grandstream GXP-1200's IP phones that I use and I also have a couple of old left-over SunRocket MTA6328 Gizmo's that I have unlocked and have pointed at Asterisk and then backwired into my home phone system). The Asus RT-N16 is a real jewel.
I've been using the ASUS (yeah I know, shut up) RT-N16 with DD-WRT installed and have been really pleased.
http://www.asus.com/Networks/Wireless_Routers/RTN16/#specifications
It is/was actually a top recommended DD-WRT device. It's also cheap.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320038
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Does anyone have any recommendation for wireless router that can handle a 100 Mbit internet connection that requires PPTP (student accommodation requires PPTP)? I have had no success with Linksys E4200 and D-Link DIR-825, which became bottlenecks. Within a reasonable price range (max $250, just to set some limit).
Dvorak on Doomtech
http://store.netgate.com/Firewalls-C2.aspx
Just add the wifi radio to it, and the crypto accelerator if you intend to do a lot with openvpn (which you should, since pfsense has it rolled right in)
I got 4 of those AG300H models, and have 3 of them deployed and 1 as a spare. One thing I noticed is that by default, the power level setting is not at the highest. Maybe that could account for the reported range issues because people don't turn it up higher. I did find issues with staying connected and low bandwidth at 2.4 GHz, but my previous WRT54GL had all the same and worse. The band is trashed where I live. That's why I switched, to get on 5.8 GHz, which is working like a champ, better than the WRT54GL ever did.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I recommend this router based on its 680Mhz CPU, 128MB RAM and 32MB flash storage. It's also dual band (802.11abgn), a gigabit switch and has a USB port so you can turn it into a NAS. It was only $89 shipped from Newegg and came with dd-wrt already on it. I put openwrt on it and have been enjoying it ever since. It comes with a 2 year warranty which I immediately voided by soldering on my own serial port. *note* if you choose to solder on your own serial port be aware this is a 3.3volt serial port so do not plug it into your PC directly as the PC's 5volt serial port will fry your hardware. Plugging it into an appropriate 3.3volt serial dongle or an arduino's serial line will work however. The latter is what I chose to do.
http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buffalo/wzr-hp-ag300h
I've made somewhat extensive use of D-Link gear, using it to provide Internet for a 600+ people at a conference, and it performed very well. We had around 20 of their $130-ish 2.4+5.2GHz APs from 3 or 4 years ago. These were not 802.11n though, this pre-dated n. Sean
If you're serious about finding the best router for your needs you'll need to look at the features/benchmarks and pros vs cons of various routers out there.
The best site i've found for this is Small Net Builder" .
Any issues with 1 become issues with all 3 if it is integrated. I've had storms kill my router but the other gear kept working. I upgraded the switch for more speed and I've upgraded the router to a real computer and file server (pfsense.) The wifi device is the 2nd one I've had which has needed upgrades and reboots all on it's own.
Some new Wifi standard?? Well, I just get another wifi device instead of a whole new all-in-one device.
Sure it may use more power; it might cost more-- for me, it has been cheaper long term to separate the functions.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I was researching this recently and the problem is that there's no consensus on which products work best. For every product out there, It's easy to find a couple of people who had success, and a few who hated it.
For OP's original requirements, I'd probably go for a Intel atom or AMD E-350 based server with pfSense and either a b/g/n NIC or a HP AP.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Of course it is related to cooling. It's a defective design, in my opinion. How many people living in ski areas will notice the altitude limit?
I recently upgraded to a Cisco E4200 and have had excellent results with it. I have never seen any advantage to using "OpenWRT" and cannot say for sure if it would even works on this device, nor do I care.
Pigskin-Referee
Linux: Yesterday's technology, tomorrow
Yes, you should be worried, it seems to me. Your Apple product is on the edge of its thermal design limit, apparently. They cannot be used in Leadville, Colorado, to use an example mentioned below.
Electronics lasts longer if it is kept very cool.
Netgear WNDR3700. Haven't bothered to try OpenWRT yet, but it works great with DD-WRT (v24-sp2 build 16454).
I am VERY happy with my Asus RT-N16, which I got on sale for $60 or so.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320038
--4-port gigabit
--b/g/n (but doesn't have the "dual" mode n or whatever it's called)
--3 antennas
--2 USB ports on the back for NAS purposes
--***Runs Tomato firmware***
--VERY fast processor for those that want the box to do other stuff (Broadcom BCM4718 533MHZ, RAM: 128MB)
With the first link, the chain is forged.
+1 for hating WNDR-3700. Good on paper, but I have to restart it at least once a day and it runs hot.