tech advice
Dec. 3rd, 2015 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrOk, Most of my gear can use gigabit ethernet. And I do have an 8-port gigabit switch.
Unfortunately, my router doesn't do gigabit, just 10/100.
This is a problem because I'd really rather have the 4 TB NAS box in the bedroom with the router.
Note, while my modem *can* do gigabit and has a built-in router & wifi, it's a total piece of junk. It is pretty much *not* configurable in any way. So I just have my old router plugged into it so I can (mostly) configure things myself.
So, I'm in the market for a new router.
It needs to be SOHO, not home. That's because some of the things I need either aren't available in home only units, or are poorly implemented.
Also, my experience is that "home" units start failing in various ways after a year or so, while decent SOHO gear lasts for many years.
So, my requirements are that it do 10/100/100 wired, have B/G/N wifi (yes, all my laptops can do N). One WAN port, 4 LAN ports.
Needs to be able to assign LAN addresses based on MAC addresses (so the same box will always get the same address). Being able to do port mapping is useful as well.
Being able to set some stuff to only work on one LAN ports would be nice too (I'd like to be able to set up a machine or two to be accessed from the internet, but still keep folks out of the rest of the LAN Though I could use one of the other ports on the modem for that, except it's so dumb, it'd be fairly useless)
I kind of liked the Cisco unit I had unit I had, an RV120W. And I'd hopefully be able to import most of the config to a different Cisco router. But I'll take some other brand if it'll work well.
Cost *is* an object. But I know that good and cheap are opposing criteria.
So, any suggestions?
(Edited to add)
I've looked over the Cisco routers on their site, and it looks like the ones that meet my specs (gigabit ethernet, wireless B/G/N) are:
RV130W
RV180W
RV220W
RV215W
The 220W is $100 more than the 130W & 180W, so it's out.
The 215W is $50 cheaper than the 130w & 180W, but it also has much lower specs for connections and VPN performance.
So it's a toss between the 130W & 180W. Prices seem to be about the same. I'd appreciate folks looking them over to see if you see significant diffs. If anyone has actual experience working with them that'd be useful too.
Unfortunately, my router doesn't do gigabit, just 10/100.
This is a problem because I'd really rather have the 4 TB NAS box in the bedroom with the router.
Note, while my modem *can* do gigabit and has a built-in router & wifi, it's a total piece of junk. It is pretty much *not* configurable in any way. So I just have my old router plugged into it so I can (mostly) configure things myself.
So, I'm in the market for a new router.
It needs to be SOHO, not home. That's because some of the things I need either aren't available in home only units, or are poorly implemented.
Also, my experience is that "home" units start failing in various ways after a year or so, while decent SOHO gear lasts for many years.
So, my requirements are that it do 10/100/100 wired, have B/G/N wifi (yes, all my laptops can do N). One WAN port, 4 LAN ports.
Needs to be able to assign LAN addresses based on MAC addresses (so the same box will always get the same address). Being able to do port mapping is useful as well.
Being able to set some stuff to only work on one LAN ports would be nice too (I'd like to be able to set up a machine or two to be accessed from the internet, but still keep folks out of the rest of the LAN Though I could use one of the other ports on the modem for that, except it's so dumb, it'd be fairly useless)
I kind of liked the Cisco unit I had unit I had, an RV120W. And I'd hopefully be able to import most of the config to a different Cisco router. But I'll take some other brand if it'll work well.
Cost *is* an object. But I know that good and cheap are opposing criteria.
So, any suggestions?
(Edited to add)
I've looked over the Cisco routers on their site, and it looks like the ones that meet my specs (gigabit ethernet, wireless B/G/N) are:
RV130W
RV180W
RV220W
RV215W
The 220W is $100 more than the 130W & 180W, so it's out.
The 215W is $50 cheaper than the 130w & 180W, but it also has much lower specs for connections and VPN performance.
So it's a toss between the 130W & 180W. Prices seem to be about the same. I'd appreciate folks looking them over to see if you see significant diffs. If anyone has actual experience working with them that'd be useful too.
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no subject
Date: 2015-12-04 09:46 am (UTC)You’ve not even ballparked your budget, but a quick search suggests that the Cisco RV130W meets the specifications you’ve given. Google reports prices ranging from $109 to $165 depending on vendor.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-04 12:41 pm (UTC)I'd forgotten to mention that I'd looked over the Cisco stuff, and it looked like the RV130W and RV180W were the best bet. Just not sure how much better the one is over the other.
Don't suppose you have an actual *experience* with either?
But thanks for your input.
ps. At one point, when we thought Fay might be getting the apartment next to mine, I considered getting a router with two WAN ports since we used different providers. That'd have let us share things easily and given both of us a fallback in case of an outage.
But she's on a different floor. Of course, I hadn't checked prices then either!
If I win the lottery... :-)
no subject
Date: 2015-12-05 02:54 am (UTC)I don't see a lot of difference between the 130 and the 180 by the spec sheets, and what differences I do see strike me as being the kind of thing that wouldn't likely be used for a home system, but might be useful for a small business that wants to professionally manage their IT.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-04 05:26 pm (UTC)