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Comments: 376 +- Ask Slashdot: Home Router For High-Speed Connection? on Friday November 27, @03:46PM
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by
kdawson
on Friday November 27, @03:46PM
from the beyond-consumer-grade dept.
from the beyond-consumer-grade dept.
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soulprivate writes "My cable company has recently begun to offer Internet access plans with speeds over 30 Mbps (60, 80 and 100 Mbps). However my D-link router is unable to go beyond 30 Mbps if I use NAT; it reaches 60-70 Mbps only if NAT is disabled. Is there any recommendation for a brand/model of residential router that is able to get more than 70 Mbps with NAT enabled? I have been looking for benchmarks or comparisons, to no avail. Does anyone know one? What are your experiences at home?"
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I would expect most brand-name ones would (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason I would expect most brand-name ones to is the public embarrassment if they were caught out like that.
Now everyone is going to check their routers and if the Belkins and Linksys-by-Cisco and others are all super-slow when NAT is on it's going to cause some major embarrassments for the industry.
I expect you either have an inferior manufacturing run, an inferior model, or an inferior brand.
I wouldn't count on it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Like most technology, they assume it's never going to be used to its potential. Take my laptop -- only when I actively cool it or balance it precariously several inches off the desk can I max out both cores. Try that with it sitting on its little rubber feet, and it overheats and throttles itself to 800 mhz. Try that when using the video card for anything stressful at all, and it shuts off.
Anyway, more on-topic, I've had a Linksys router (WRT54G) crash repeatedly when I attempt to run BitTorrent through it to a 100 mbit fiber connection. The solution was to replace it with a Linux box, and let the Linksys router only handle the wireless.
It's the same mentality that they've used to sell you 100 mbits -- works great if you just want to browse faster, maybe watch the occasional YouTube video. Sucks if you want to actually use it -- BitTorrent, maybe a Freenet node, or just transferring files between two machines connected to 100 mbit Internet -- before you know it, they're throttling it and bitching that you're a "bandwidth hog". In other words, they wanted to sell you 100 mbits because it sounds faster than 30 mbits, not because they expect people to actually need it.
Parent
Ip COP? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I would expect most brand-name ones would (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks for the advice! Too bad it's incorrect and you apparently just wrote something to see your name here. There's no reason for the brand-name ones or any one (they all buy and rebrand from the same Chinese OEM developers anyway) to maintain speeds faster than the fastest broadband connections on the market. This has been cheap and easy so far, since the market in this case suck at delivering fast speeds.
It's common knowledge among those of us that have 100/100 at home that those routers just can't keep up. They usually also lack RAM to track enough connections to saturate the bandwidth with torrent downloads or similar.
I'd set up openwrt or distro-of-your-choice (m0n0wall was nice last time I looked at these things) on a small and silent PC with two network cards, mini-itx or such. That would give you the prestanda and flexibility you want.
Parent
Linksys Wireless WRT310N (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
hmm...wish i had that problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Second of all, shouldn't a gigabit router give you what you need? Or am I completely off-base here and missing something...?
Re:hmm...wish i had that problem (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that you can get a ~200MHz MIPS or ARM SBC with multiple LAN ports and a wireless card for $50 is quite impressive in the historical sense; but it is still pretty wimpy.
Parent
Chart (Score:5, Informative)
My ISP links to http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_chart/Itemid,189/ [smallnetbuilder.com] which has throughput numbers for common home routers.
The long and short of it is that a lot of these devices have pretty poor performance, and can get away with it because they're used on 1.5mbps lines. However, there are some out there that are decent.
Of course, there's the build-it-yourself approach with m0n0wall or pfSense or something else. With a spare PC laying around you'll likely get reasonable performance, although electricity usage is quite a bit higher than an appliance.
Re:Chart (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Power usage (Score:4, Interesting)
doesn't make sense anymore - those projects all took advantage of spare clockcycles which were being provided anyway, and not being used. Modern CPUs throttle themselves right down if they're not loaded, and running a project like that just makes them run at full power when they don't need to. I was running rosetta@home 24/7 on my Q6600, until I realised that it was thrashing my system's cooling so hard that it was making ~ 3x more noise than it needed to be. Luckily I shut it off before I did any mechanical damage to the fans and my system is whisper-quiet again.
Anyway, to bring this back on topic. OP could try rolling his own [soekris.com]. (Note: I haven't done this, I don't know whether it would work, and those look frightfully expensive. It just looks like it would be a neat toy, and a geeky talking point)
Parent
Find a cheap machine... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
WRT-160NL (Score:4, Informative)
I have a 100/10 mbit (fiber, no modems etc) line at home and use a Linksys WRT-160NL. When I do heavy file transfer (downloading, mainly from big FTPs like universities and such) the speed is around 90 mbits (~9.5 Mb/sec).
I highly recommend it. And if you're extra geeky, I know that there's a OpenWRT port being worked on, but it's not finished yet.
Linux PC (Score:5, Informative)
The replies you've got so far seem to think that just because a router has gigabit ports that it can do NAT at gigabit speeds, which of course you've already figured out is nonsense.
For a standalone firewall box you might need to look at something like a Cisco ASA. Not cheap but they will at least specify the actual NAT throughput for whatever model you pick.
The other way to go is to roll your own on a decent PC with Linux which will get you a few hundred Mbps easily. For example a Mac Mini or FitPC will be fast enough.
Re:Linux PC (Score:5, Informative)
I second your opinion on using a PC. He may still run into a PPS rate limitation with the router though. It depends on how they bring the connection in. A friend of mine has a business FIOS line (20Mb/20Mb) and a /25 of static IP's, and I specified at install time that they had to bring it in by CAT5. They'll either install CAT5 or coax. I yanked their router off as soon as they finished the install, and put a Catalyst 2924 on. The speed was ok (but not great) with their router. It was exactly as advertised through the 2924.
For a NAT environment, a decent PC with Linux and iptables would be fine. It would obviously need decent interfaces (nope, that old 10baseT card won't do it), but it doesn't need lots of memory or even CPU power. A handy spare 1Ghz machine with 256Mb RAM is overkill, but easily available in most of our homes. :) The best part is, it's free. No need to waste money on new equipment, if you already have it sitting in your garage gathering dust.
I don't recommend exceeding 80% capacity on the interfaces. If they do offer 100Mb/s, it's time to upgrade to GigE interfaces. Again, that's pretty easy to do these days. You'll start running into problems at the PCI bus after a while, but that's over 100Mb/s.
Even in testing the 20Mb/s connection a couple years ago, I just started downloading ISO's. From any one source, I ran into their limitations, so I pulled one copy from a bunch of mirrors, and was able to saturate the connection to flatline at 28Mb/s (wheee). Their advertising was wrong, but I won't complain when they're wrong in my favor.
Parent
Re:Linux PC (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet another interesting alternative is to run your router on a VM. In my case, I also needed to have a file server, an Asterisk server, a web server, virtual desktop, etc, it made sense for me to also run the router on a VM. I built an i7 box with 12GB of RAM and 2x1TB disks for about 900 bucks, installed the free ESXi 4U1 and separate NIC cards for each interface and a virtual DMZ. The box is a rocket, and I now that covers all my needs with a single computer in the house.
Parent
Buy used hardware (Score:2)
I have an old Dell PowerEdge 350 that I used for quite some time as my home router/Asterisk box. Just recently retired it - replaced it with a VMWare ESXi 4.0 box with a single VM running my router/Asterisk instance. Works like a charm too.
Find someone who has an old rack mount server for sale (eBay is your friend, so is CraigsList), install a Linux Distro of your choice and unless you are trying to run a BGP instance with a full view, you should be fine.
Wired or Wifi? (Score:2)
I agree with TheRealMindChild (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I agree with TheRealMindChild (Score:4, Interesting)
The challenge is keeping your "old server" hardware alive without having staff supporting/monitoring it.
Sure, good HW can keep churning for quite some time, but sooner or later the HD will die. Or the PSU will grow tired. Maybe a fan will die and leave the system overheated? When compared to a brand spanking new dedicated unit I believe one can get away with less human monitoring. Of course, as always, YMMV.
Then again, should you have the resources available, pfsense or m0n0wall are the bomb. Seriously.
Parent
You must be new here. (Score:3, Funny)
I thought everyone on Slashdot built their own firewalls using Linux and / or OpenBSD. WTF? I guess they'll give an account to just about anyone these days.
Linux firewall + gigabit switch (Score:4, Interesting)
You could do what I do: use a compact computer with two NICs (motherboard NIC plus a PCI 3Com NIC) as the firewall. Run Devil-Linux [devil-linux.org] from a read-only device. Then, the inside of your firewall can be a gigabit switch. Devil-Linux is pretty easy to configure, although perhaps not quite as easy as a consumer firewall/router with a good web-based GUI. You can boot Devil-Linux from a CD drive, with a write-protected floppy holding your settings; you can roll a custom CD with the settings burned onto it; or you can use a write-protected USB flash drive for everything. No hard drive is needed.
Pro: Fastest possible throughput and lowest latency; excellent security.
Con: Will consume more electricity at idle than a consumer firewall/router box.
steveha
Pick anything (Score:3, Informative)
Don't worry about speed, look at the price, support (do you have to a broken unit to china or can you get it replaced in the store?) and features instead.
Or even better: bring up an old computer with two NICs from the basement, install Linux or FreeBSD and add a cheap switch. That beats any home router in price and features!
Chart comparing throughput of various home routers (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_chart/Itemid,189/
I found this a few months ago... seems what you are asking for.
Mikrotik (Score:3, Informative)
Mikrotik Routers, despite some bad press, are good. They are inexpensive, can be build with commodity hardware, and easily handle that level of traffic.
hardware specs on mine: 2.4Ghz P-IV, 512MB Rambus RAM, 1 * T100 Ethernet port (motherboard)connected to modem, 5 * 10/100/1000 ports (NICs) connected to home network and one 802.11g wifi NIC (operating as a hotspot), 1 256MB flash card in IDE adapter.
FIOS connection gives me 60*5 with one IP, and regularly sustains that with as many as four separate machines running BT at any given time, 2 public game servers, as well as various other uses. 60+ firewall rules, full NAT with 20+ port forwarding rules, it runs like a champ.
http://www.mikrotik.com/ [mikrotik.com]
If you already have the hardware laying around doing nothing, go ahead and give them a look.
Re:Mikrotik (Score:4, Informative)
Or buy one of the lower end RouterBoards. A 450G would be a fairly good fit for this situation and comes in at under $150 with a case and a power supply.
Parent
WRAPs or similar are nice. (Score:3, Informative)
The Ciscos and Junipers of the world will probably cut it(with the distinctly possible exception of older used ones. If you get something from the era where routing a 10Mb lan into a T1 line was Real Serious Stuff, bittorrent over a 30Mb line is going to make it cry expensive enterprise tears); but they are expensive, even used, and many of their features are probably overkill for home applications.
Your best bet might be to run m0n0wall [m0n0.ch] or pfsense [pfsense.com]. Depending on your tolerance for fan noise, you can either get a basic intel atom board for ~$80 or an embedded x86 board from soekris [soekris.com] or pcengines [pcengines.ch] or similar.
That combination will be pretty featureful, quite a bit more powerful than your basic home box, and cheaper than any business box that isn't seriously antiquated.
I Beg To Differ (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, YMMW, but my search ended with this piece of hardware.Of course, it's priced slightly higher than the average router, but IMHO it's worth it.
On a side note: I personally, had no luck what so ever using Linksys offerings, including the WRT54*. Most "premium" hardware platforms in the consumer sphere only offer throughput close to 30-40 or even 50 Mbps while on NAT.
Good luck. And enjoy the speeds you have been blessed with, son.
Cisco (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, the Cisco ASA 5505 is not that expensive anymore. Does 150Mbps according to Cisco.
You poor bastard (Score:5, Funny)
I don't have an answer to your problem (other than "get a computer"), but you have my deepest sympathies. It is so hard to hear of my fellow human being having such horrific adversities inflicted upon them, and I cannot help but wonder: could this misfortune fall upon me some day?
I can only hope that you overcome the terrible burden of a 100 Mpbs internet connection thrust upon you and your residence, and somehow, god-willing, find a reason to keep on living, in order to set an example for others who may some day suffer the same fate. No matter how dark and hopeless things look right now, don't give up! If you can survive this calamity, maybe I can overcome my own problems as well.
Bless you, my friend, and good luck!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I can only hope that you overcome the terrible burden of a 100 Mpbs internet connection thrust upon you and your residence, and somehow, god-willing, find a reason to keep on living
Yeah, especially since he's going to hit his monthly cap in less than five minutes and get his account cancelled.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm, I have one of those, running HyperWRT... I can't manage to go over 2MB/s between the internal LAN and the WAN, though. On the same LAN, my hosts usually push 6-10MB/s between each other.
My ISP gives me a couple of static IPs, though... so I put my main box (and any other hosts I want good performance on) on a GigE switch connected directly to the 15Mbps uplink... the NAT router is just for all of the rest of the lazy wifi laptops and older wired boxes who just deal with the slower performance.
6-year-old SMC2804 (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:The best (Score:5, Informative)
This is bad advice. The WRT54GL is *not* capable of routing at much faster than 30Mbps, because the LAN and WAN ports are on the same switch, connected to one physical Ethernet interface.
You at least need a device with 2 physical Ethernet interfaces, like the ar71xx [openwrt.org] platform.
Parent
Re:The best (Score:4, Funny)
What comes to the submitters question, you probably have old router (and it's D-Link too..)
For the most delicious router, choose Buffalo or Linksys. They are like the bacon, steak, onion, american cheese and pineapple pan pizza on a BBQ sauce - you just gotta love it.
Going to the internet without a good router is like taking a flight to Somalia and except you get a good service in their Pizza Hut. It might be good, it might even be delicious, but you aren't going to get ice cream as a dessert.
Parent
Re:The best (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, you skipped lunch again.
Parent
Re:The best (Score:5, Funny)
stoppit, you're making badAnalogyGuy excited and hungry at the same time
Parent
Car Analogy? (Score:4, Funny)
Can you explain that in car analogy?
Preferably in non pizza delivery vehicles.
Parent
Re:The best (Score:5, Interesting)
Looking for an alternative that's quiet, low power and linux friendly I came across the Routerstation Pro http://www.ubnt.com/products/rspro.php [ubnt.com]. It runs the same linux-based firmwares as the WRT line of routers, but with a CPU clocked more than 3 times as high, more RAM and expansion possibilities etc. I have not tested it yet though, but reviews seems promising, routing 100 Mpbs should not be a problem.
Parent
Re:The best (Score:4, Informative)
These little WRT's and such have the equivalent of 8-bit 200 Mhz CPU's.
They have what is a 32-bit 200 MHz processor. Specifically this one [broadcom.com] in the referenced Linksys model.
Parent
Re:The best (Score:5, Informative)
I use a dedicated PC for my 100Mbps connection. An old PIII 800 computer with Gentoo. Works like a charm.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hardware costs are pretty much free for a PC that can serve as a router. Just yesterday I pulled a Compaq Presario with an Athlon XP 1900+ and 1GB of ram out of the trash. Works fine, minus no harddisk, but draws over 100W at idle so probably not a good router candidate.
I have an old P3-600E running as a router. I picked this particular one out of the scrap pile because the 2nd generation slotted P3's are pretty low power processors (all under 20W). I have it turn off the HDD when not needed, which is m
Re:Why do you need it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Why do you need it? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually considering there are content distribution networks like Akamai and of course Google that have servers within one hop of most metropolitan ISP's edge routers, it's pretty likely you'll be able to achieve those speeds for a lot of your content.
I recommend they take a look at some of the small business products from Cisco and Sonicwall. They are a step above the home stuff in features and price. Most of them will list their firewall throughput, how much they can NAT is a function of the processor and more importantly the software.. Beware that there is some Cisco branded stuff that is actually Linksys in disguise (with minor software changes), however Cisco won't put it's name on total crap (yet) so they are pretty good.
Parent
Re:Why do you need it? (Score:4, Informative)
Also, as far as low end professional stuff, the ASA 5505 is pretty good (overkill for home use probably). It'll do 150Mbps NAT and it does that with hardware VPN also. The lowest version (10 user license) is around $350. It has a built in layer 3 switch also.
Parent
Re:Why do you need it? (Score:4, Interesting)
What website do you expect to give you more than a 30Mbps connection?!
Website(s) plural. The neat thing about the net is you can have mulitple connections going, which is extra neat if you have more than one computer. Me personally, I'd use that to sync with the server at work so I have a bunch of stuff at home to access. Fun stuff.
Frankly, though, I'm not sure why you're asking. "You're paying for a really fast connection, but couldn't you just settle for half of it?" How would you respond to somebody suggesting you disable one of your cores?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because there is more then one person suing the system?
Because there are places to get a greater then 30Mbps download.
Because he is moving 1080P images in real time?
When someone asks a question like this, why is there always someone without imagination implying there is no use for it?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or you could be in a bad part of the 'net as far as Akamai or whatever distribution network you're using. When I download an ISO from MSDN, they're able to max out my connection, and I'm not on one of the "lite" connections.
Downloading from Windows Update, on the other hand, tends to run a lot slower. But that's because it's using BITS to transfer, even when it's in the foreground. Downloads from the developper's network, or direct download of manual patch files is unthrottled.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
a Cisco ASA 5505 would certainly do the job. I upgraded to a 5505 / 10 user unit at home after having a PIX 501 for years and it rocks. You're looking at just under 400.00 new for a 10 user unit and used is all over the place. Throw on 100.00 for SmartNet if you've never used Cisco's IOS before....