Suggestions for WiFi Router + USB WiFi Dongle + NAS with Torrent support

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Lord Nemesis

Lord Nemesis

Overlord
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Alright guy's, I need suggestions for these

1. WiFi Router with good range and good out of the box firmware. i.e it should work well without needing to install a CFW like DD-WRT. This will be used primarily to share my Internet connection with two PC's + two tablets (iPad 2 and Transformer Prime) + PS3 and for sharing files, streaming media to tablets/PS3. I would prefer the price to be under 5k.

2. USB WiFi dongles to be used on my two PC's.

3. Dual Bay NAS box which can double as Torrent/HTTP downloading station.

I understand that there are WiFi router with torrent capabilities, but most of them seem to have issues like torrent file size limits and poor transfer rates etc. If there are any that are really good with downloading out of the box, I will consider them too.

I am also open to building a Mini ITX based (Atom or Fusion APU) Download box such a machine can be multipurposed. I have spare RAM (DDR3 4GB 1333MHz) and HDD's.
 
1) This isn't really out of the box, but the E4200 that I've been using with TomatoUSB has been performing flawlessly with very little effort put into setting it up. After flashing TomatoUSB, I must've spent less than 10 minutes to get it up and running. This includes setting up the internet connection, Transmission and file sharing! Mainly because there's a variant of TomatoUSB for the E4200 and a few other routers that has a torrent client and Samba built-in. So no need to bother with installing Optware unless you require some other additional functionality.

I've been using DD-WRT on an E3000 and a WRT610N before that for over two years. My primary usage being similar to yours. Sharing the net connection between multiple wired and wireless devices, running torrents and sharing data across the network. With DD-WRT, copying files from the network drive to any PC on the network would top out at 4-5MB/s whereas with TomatoUSB it constantly touches 10MB/s. Wireless performance on TomatoUSB is rock-solid too. DD-WRT could be troublesome with wifi performance. Especially with the newer Broadcom drivers where the wireless connection would degrade a lot and require a reboot. I've never had any issues with torrent file size limits or anything. I've downloaded 30-40GB torrents without any problems whatsoever. This could probably be because of the filesystem though. I've formatted the external drive in ext3 ever since I've had this setup running. I never got around to trying Tomato earlier mainly because I didn't have too much time to mess around with it, and had nowhere to move the nearly 1TB of data on the shared drive. After taking the plunge, I didn't even need to bother moving the data from the shared drive! Seeing the stability of TomatoUSB, I've moved all the other routers to it as well. Won't go back to DD-WRT unless it can do something spectacular like make me breakfast in the morning or something!!! The biggest problem of course, is the budget! The E4200 currently retails for around 10-11k, I think. But if you consider that a cheaper router and a NAS box will cost you more than that anyway, it's a good deal. If you do decide to go for the E4200, go for the v1. That's the unit with a Broadcom chip. There's a newer v2 unit that uses a Marvel chip and hence is unsupported by both DD-WRT or TomatoUSB. The v2 has the version number printed on the box, so it's easy to differentiate.

2) For the wifi dongles, not too sure since I don't really use any. I've got a Cisco AE1000 which I haven't used in a while, but used to work really well when I was using it. I think it's now been replaced by a newer model called the AE2500. Haven't had the need to use it much because my desktop is wired to the router and all the wireless devices are laptops with built-in wifi and smartphones.

3) If you decide to go for the E4200 or E3000, I suppose this wouldn't be necessary. If not, there's the D-Link DNS-323. Or even the Xtreamer Pro supports torrents if I'm not mistaken.
 
Buffalo routers best matches your requirements but prepare to spend 9-10k
 
Any specific model that you would like to point out. I will spend 9k+ only if its going to double up as a downloader as well. I don't need uber costly high spec model if its just going to serve as router. 300Mbps WiFi + 4x 100Mbps Wired should be enough for me as far as router is concerned.
 
^ If you are going for a new router, better opt for one with gigabit ports, the difference in file transfer speeds is definitely worth the extra cost.
 
dinjo said:
Buffalo routers best matches your requirements but prepare to spend 9-10k
Click to expand...

Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH is priced around 4K but its range is pathetic. The TP-Link 841 at half the cost is far better. The Buffalo is solid for a NAS and torrent download though. The availability of Buffalo routers is also a problem
 
The Cisco E4200 is 12k on Flipkart! I know, ouch! Thought I saw it for 11k elsewhere. You could check in retail. Might get it for less. Staples and Croma also stocks the Cisco models.

Quite expensive, yes, but it also does all that you want of it, and pretty well too. You won't need to get a separate NAS box or anything. The only thing is that you'll need to flash TomatoUSB on it. I certainly have no regrets with it after moving to TomatoUSB!

Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk 2 Beta-4
 
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