In need of stable router

Darth Duane · Feb 26, 2015

I recently retired my old Cisco 891-w which had served me well for years. I now have a 300mb connection and the cisco did not have gigabit ethernet ports which was a problem. I know that the 891-w was an enterprise class router and I will likely not find anything like that stability in my price range of 100-200, but stability is my number one priority. Time Warner gave me an Arris Dg160a which has been nothing but trouble with constant dropped connections.

My environment is all wired or N clients so AC while nice is not a priority and not worth a large jump in cost. Maximum throughput is also not a huge concern as long as it can max out my 300mb connection which appears to not be a problem at all with most devices. There is very little LAN to LAN traffic. I do however download 100-200 gigs worth of data a day several times a week.

My goal is to find a device that i will be able to use for a few years that will rarely if ever need to be reset and wont drop connections even while downloading at 300mps.

I have looked at many of the reviews on this site but they seem to focus a lot on maximum throughput and range neither of which are real concerns for me due to my environment. Any suggestions are appreciated.

microchip · Feb 26, 2015

I have three routers at the moment. The NETGEAR R7000 Nighthawk, the ASUS AC66U and the TP-Link Archer C7. If I had to choose between them, I'd choose the R7000 for its hardware, wifi range and stability with latest firmware. Granted, the R7000 doesn't offer all the bells and whistles of ASUS firmware, but if you need a simple setup and use your routers mostly for routing (and don't try to turn it into a small PC), then it's more than enough

My second choice is the TP-Link C7 which, although offers an archaic interface, has even more options than the R7000. From what I read over the past year, ASUS routers seem to be a hit and miss in terms of firmware issues. Some are very happy with them, some reports (lots of) issues.

Darth Duane · Feb 26, 2015

microchip said:
I have three routers at the moment. The NETGEAR R7000 Nighthawk, the ASUS AC66U and the TP-Link Archer C7. If I had to choose between them, I'd choose the R7000 for its hardware, wifi range and stability with latest firmware. Granted, the R7000 doesn't offer all the bells and whistles of ASUS firmware, but if you need a simple setup and use your routers mostly for routing (and don't try to turn it into a small PC), then it's more than enough

My second choice is the TP-Link C7 which, although offers an archaic interface, has even more options than the R7000. From what I read over the past year, ASUS routers seem to be a hit and miss in terms of firmware issues. Some are very happy with them, some reports (lots of) issues.

Thanks for the input. Have you found the C7 very stable? The 100$ price difference between the C7 and the R7000 makes me immediately wonder if the C7 will fit my needs. as you said my needs are fairly simple. I will not be using the USB ports at all as i have a server at home.

microchip · Feb 26, 2015

Darth Duane said:
Thanks for the input. Have you found the C7 very stable? The 100$ price difference between the C7 and the R7000 makes me immediately wonder if the C7 will fit my needs. as you said my needs are fairly simple. I will not be using the USB ports at all as i have a server at home.

Yes, the C7 is very stable. I never had a single self-reboot or other problems with it. The only downside of the C7 is that it uses internal antenna's for 2.4 which makes it have shorter 2.4GHz range. Also, the 5GHz range is nothing to write home about. All in all, the C7 is, at least for me, very stable. I've used different firmware revisions across its life and never had stability issues

Darth Duane · Feb 26, 2015

microchip said:
Yes, the C7 is very stable. I never had a single self-reboot or other problems with it. The only downside of the C7 is that it uses internal antenna's for 2.4 which makes it have shorter 2.4GHz range. Also, the 5GHz range is nothing to write home about. All in all, the C7 is, at least for me, very stable. I've used different firmware revisions across its life and never had stability issues

That is very encouraging. I'm definitely considering the C7. Range isn't a huge issue for me as I live in a 1000 sqft apartment. The farthest i am likely to be from the router while using wireless is 30 feet or so.

microchip · Feb 26, 2015

Darth Duane said:
That is very encouraging. I'm definitely considering the C7. Range isn't a huge issue for me as I live in a 1000 sqft apartment. The farthest i am likely to be from the router while using wireless is 30 feet or so.

Yes, I'd recommend it but only based on my own experience. Do note that the C7 had (or has?) issues with Apple devices. From what I've heard, these should be resolved by now with latest firmware but I cannot confirm that as I don't have any Apple devices. This is not the fault of the C7 but mostly the fault of Apple and their aggressive powersaving tuning.

The C7 may not be top of the top, but it does score "best" in routing performance on the SNB tests of AC1750 routers. Of course, this is in a controlled environment, so YMMV

System Error Message · Feb 26, 2015

mikrotik routerboards are quite stable. The minimum you need for your internet speed is a 680Mhz MIPS based routerboard. The only time i ever needed to reset a routerboard was when updating the firmware. If you liked cisco than mikrotik is a cheaper alternative. In the price range you listed there are a number of mikrotik routerboards you can buy that are fast enough. They have more features and stability than tp-link. Some of them have integrated wireless while some you need to get the wireless AC card to use with miniPCIE

If the routerboard crashes it will reboot itself such as when i overclocked them.

Tp-link hardware stability is pretty random because they have so many hardware revisions of the same model. They work well when you use basic features only.

Trip · Feb 26, 2015

For MikroTik, you *might* be able to get away with an RB2011, but most likely you'll want to get the RB850Gx2, or even a CCR model. Another option would be an EdgeRouter Lite (plus access point). For a solid N-class AP, the EnGenius ECB-350 has always pulled through for me (20+ installs, never a single issue - no brainer).

stevech · Feb 26, 2015

IMO: MikroTik too geeky for OP.

My Cradlepoint MBR never needed rebooting.
My ASUS NRT-N12/D1 never needs rebooting. LAN PCs, NAS, iPad, iPhone, HTC Android.

What's the common denominaotor? Good companies. Good products. Far back from the bleeding edge.

Darth Duane · Feb 27, 2015

Thank you for the advice. I'm looking in to these options mentioned now.

CaptainSTX · Feb 27, 2015

If stability is your number one objective consider adding a UPS to your setup to plug both your modem and router into. Power glitches do cause problems.

Since I added a UPS to power my network gear I seldom or ever have problems and with the power conditioning they provide your equipment should last longer.

If you have a fixed budget buy a less expensive router and then spend $60 - $80 for the UPS.

Darth Duane · Feb 27, 2015

I couldn't find anywhere local that had a C7 and they had an r7000. I picked one up to test in my environment for 90 days during the return period. I researched the mikrotik devices but it looked like to get a 5ghz setup it was going to take quite a few pieces and the end cost was pretty high.

Hopefully the r7000 will fit all my needs and that can be that, if not i will return it and go from there.

Thanks for all the advice.

stevech · Feb 27, 2015

Darth Duane said:
I couldn't find anywhere local that had a C7 and they had an r7000. I picked one up to test in my environment for 90 days during the return period. I researched the mikrotik devices but it looked like to get a 5ghz setup it was going to take quite a few pieces and the end cost was pretty high.

Hopefully the r7000 will fit all my needs and that can be that, if not i will return it and go from there.

Thanks for all the advice.

I hope you luck-out with Netgear. I have a bad history with them - inconsistent firmware and hardware build quality. I have several years' problem-free with Cradlepoint and ASUS - avoiding bleeding edge new products. Netgear's pro-line switches are good.

System Error Message · Feb 28, 2015

for $70 you can get routerboards with integrated wireless AC (911xxx) than just couple it with an RB 850gx2. Its only a dual stream wireless AP but you can make it 4 stream if you get the $90 and miniPCIe card

Darth Duane · Feb 28, 2015

System Error Message said:
for $70 you can get routerboards with integrated wireless AC (911xxx) than just couple it with an RB 850gx2. Its only a dual stream wireless AP but you can make it 4 stream if you get the $90 and miniPCIe card

Perhaps i was confused when looking in to it but after adding all the boards i needed, the case, the power supply, etc it was coming out to 250+ which is more than i wanted to spend.

microchip · Feb 28, 2015

Darth Duane said:
I couldn't find anywhere local that had a C7 and they had an r7000. I picked one up to test in my environment for 90 days during the return period. I researched the mikrotik devices but it looked like to get a 5ghz setup it was going to take quite a few pieces and the end cost was pretty high.

Hopefully the r7000 will fit all my needs and that can be that, if not i will return it and go from there.

Thanks for all the advice.

I have the R7000, as I mentioned earlier, and so far I'm very pleased with it, both stability, hardware and firmware, although it's a bit light on some "important" options. It's my first NETGEAR router and I can't really complain about it. It definitely has much better range on 2.4 than the C7.

Play with it and see how it goes

coxhaus · Feb 28, 2015

What about splitting your wireless out away from the router? This allows you to work on either and not affect the other. I have been doing this for 12 years because I ran my own mail server before I retired. It also allows me to upgrade the wireless and not affect the router or vice versa. I also run multiple wireless devices to get complete coverage for my home, recent addition. My system runs for months and months without attention. My main system has an APC 1400 rack mount UPS. This keeps power glitches from affecting the network. There have only been a couple power outages which were long enough to take everything down. I also run multiple firewalls and having wireless separate allows me to place the wireless behind a second firewall. It seems like the separate devices are built a little better, as they are built for small businesses.

System Error Message · Mar 1, 2015

Darth Duane said:
Perhaps i was confused when looking in to it but after adding all the boards i needed, the case, the power supply, etc it was coming out to 250+ which is more than i wanted to spend.

where did you select the case and psu from? You can use any psu that supplies enough current with the right voltage. The case shouldnt be too much either.

sfx2000 · Mar 1, 2015

System Error Message said:
where did you select the case and psu from? You can use any psu that supplies enough current with the right voltage. The case shouldnt be too much either.

you know they're hard core/old school if the BBPS is 48VDC

sfx

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In need of stable router

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