VM Router : Best Router / Hub combo for 2015

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Kushan

I don't know why Tomato can't use the hardware acceleration, so I can't comment on it.

However, while I agree that the router can be limited in performance if you use certain features of it, I wouldn't say that's particularly out of the norm for most electronics out there.

The hardware, stack, and driver design for hardware-accelerated NAT on consumer devices is still messy and dirty and proprietary. HW NAT on consumer routers is still at around 1.5th gen where it's slightly better than the original first-gen implementations which broke everything if you turned it on (firewall, port forwarding, QoS) but only barely. This particular limitation purely as a result of bad design.

I wouldn't say such limitations are the norm. You don't expect your mobile phone's web browser to stop working if you switch on 4G. You don't expect your MP3 player to stop playing certain files if you turn on the equalizer. You don't expect your antivirus to only work if you turn off the firewall. You don't expect half your fridge to stop working if you turn on the freezer.

From my experience, the QoS on the device isn't worth the performance penalty anyway (I've never found it to be particularly good).

Depends entirely on the situation. If you have a high bandwidth environment that isn't regularly bottlenecked or bandwidth use is already well constrained, you've no need for QoS. I've never needed QoS when using a symmetric gigabit internet connection, but one person uploading Youtube videos on a throttled VM upload is enough to slow everyone else's web to a crawl.

Care to recommend another router that will do 700Mbit+ WAN-to-LAN with QoS and in the same rough price range as the Asus?

I'm certain some products that have the hardware capabilities exist but I'm not aware of ones that actually expose that combination aside from high-end gear or custom x86 builds.

That said, there are still better routers for less money. My personal preference is for the Archer C7, which does 1320Mbps WAN-to-LAN and depending where you look beats the AC66U's wireless performance for £50 less.

---------- Post added at 16:52 ---------- Previous post was at 16:46 ----------

Originally Posted by mmm

The multi-core ARM routers should be many times faster than the MIPS N66U, and I have no doubt will be the standard in future. I still favour Asus since they are so active with firmware upgrades and release of GPL source-codes (the 5-year old RT-N16 has just had a new beta firmware released!).

Indeed, as mentioned latest-gen hardware should be capable of those speeds even with pure software NAT. My personal experience shows with a fully flexible software stack you can get well over 200Mbps with a single-core 400Mhz MIPS SoC so 1.2Ghz dual-core ARM chips should have no problem.

[mmm]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

...1320Mbps WAN-to-LAN

On Gigabit Ethernet? There is a good reason even clean room lab tests cannot exceed 1024!

The "TP-LINK AC1750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router (Archer C7)" does rank highly though I agree

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/view

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

I wouldn't say such limitations are the norm. You don't expect your mobile phone's web browser to stop working if you switch on 4G. You don't expect your MP3 player to stop playing certain files if you turn on the equalizer. You don't expect your antivirus to only work if you turn off the firewall. You don't expect half your fridge to stop working if you turn on the freezer.

It's not that it causes things to stop working, just that using certain features impacts the performance of other areas - again, this is normal for a lot of stuff. Your examples are a little different, it's more like you wouldn't expect 18+ hours battery on your phone while watching HD media, but standby is more realistic.

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

That said, there are still better routers for less money. My personal preference is for the Archer C7, which does 1320Mbps WAN-to-LAN and depending where you look beats the AC66U's wireless performance for £50 less.

I'll have to look into this, it sounds impressive.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by mmm

On Gigabit Ethernet? There is a good reason even clean room lab tests cannot exceed 1024!

I'm not sure what 1024 has to do with anything. The maximum full-duplex throughput on gigabit ethernet is nominally 2000Mbps. Half duplex, which shouldn't exist on gigabit, is nominally 1000Mbps.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wirel...owall=&start=4

[mmm]

I stand corrected, once you hit the limit in one direction you have to look at simultaneous up and down to rank the CPU throughput. TP-Link do seem to be helping keep all the prices down, there are several newer cheap new routers in the current table

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools...76-total-simul

GPL source-code seems to be available - any 3rd party firmwares - I see OpenWRT ...?

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by mmm

GPL source-code seems to be available - any 3rd party firmwares - I see OpenWRT ...?

Yes indeed, that's the main reason I use TP-Link routers, including the C7. Atheros SoCs = good open-source and 3rd party support. That said, it's a fairly slow CPU, and the wireless is CPU limited to about 800-900Mbps.