Linksys WRT1900AC AC1900 Dual Band Wireless Router Review

[sfx2000]

Did a quick check - some odd stuff with the Samba fileserver on the WRT1900ac series and the Media Prioritization function - if it's enabled - the WAN speed setting throttles the Samba server...

My WAN speed is 50/5 Mbps - it turbos up to around 65Mbps, so I set the 60,000Kbps...

With Media Prioritization enabled, I'm seeing roughly 65Mbps Samba file copies - which over GiGE, is pretty slow, with it disabled, 700Mbps on the same file copy (which perhaps is a bit faster than what Tim H observed in his review)...

So it looks like we do have another bug in the Linksys firmware for the WRT1900acV1/V2/ACS and WRT1200ac

 

[mountain_man]

thanks sfx!! turning off media prioritization got me a couple extra MB/s on write and from 3MB/s to 9-10MB/s read on wifi with SMB on my laptop. Too bad it doesn't work like it's supposed to and media prioritization is actually a problem, but thank you for helping me out on this one! My shield tv still only gets 2.7MB/s read from this drive over 5ghz AC wifi so Kodi doesn't work but at least it's a little better now.

In my experience, you absolutely cannot use this in place of a NAS for a central media library at home.

 

[sfx2000]

I have a dedicated NAS box (QNAP), so I rarely use the SMB server functionality on this router/AP - my digging into this was a result of another thread referencing poor throughput on the Samba server, and not aligning with the reviews...

Note that I just tried the USB3 port, not the USB2/eSATA port, so results there might vary...

 

[mountain_man]

But the storage performance seems like it can be a good replacement for a budget NAS. I use a Phemon II x4 965 based PC as a NAS, in addition to a cheap single drive NAS for 24/7 use of hosting media for the HTPC.

Don't believe this for a second. I get max 3MB/s read from a usb 3.0 drive hanging off this router on a shield tv with ac wifi full bars. Max read I get when connected with a cat5 cable is still 3 MB/s. Kodi hangs so much you can't even use it.

The media prioritization setting actually makes transfer speeds even slower. I've spent the last month and a half going back and forth with linksys level 2 support and they haven't resolved anything.... except delay me to be outside of the amazon return period so now I'm stuck with this and Linksys won't refund. Shoulda gone with a different router. I'm really disappointed by Linksys. I'm also disappointed with the smallnetbuilder review that touts this thing as having great attached storage performance. Complete garbage.

 

[sfx2000]

Don't believe this for a second. I get max 3MB/s read from a usb 3.0 drive hanging off this router on a shield tv with ac wifi full bars. Max read I get when connected with a cat5 cable is still 3 MB/s. Kodi hangs so much you can't even use it.

Couple of things to try... the performance you're seeing isn't consistent with what many folks have observed.

First - disable media prioritization - it's a switch, so previous settings won't be lost..

Second - move over to the eSATA/USB2 port (seriously...) and see what happens there.

Now for a couple of questions:

1) What file system is used on the external disk? NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT
2) What is the vendor/model of the USB drive?
3) Try a different USB 3.0 cable, some are non-spec, and run slow...

I had a 5TB Seagate BackupPlus external formatted NTFS - It's USB3, and since it's a SMR drive, write performance isn't optimal compared to a PMR drive, but even there - copying a large MP4 file (very large 4GB video file), I see around 65 to 70 MB/Sec, which is slightly slower than my intel based NAS box - media prioritization brings things down to about 5MB/Sec - this is over ethernet...

Fastest 11ac machine I have only has a 2 stream radio, but even there, it'll push 32-35 MB/Sec...

(MB - big B so that's Bytes, not Bits)

 

[mountain_man]

Thanks SFX. I have disabled media prioritization per your suggestion earlier. That got me a few more MB/s (megabyte, not bit) over wifi. Max speeds now are 10MB/s read or write on my laptop over wifi (2.4ghz). From an nvidia shield tv (android tv) on 5 ghz wifi, I still only can read from the drive at 2.7MB/s, which sucks since the whole point is for the attached storage to be the centralized media, and Kodi won't even play a video without freezing regularly over SMB.

I tried the other port (2.0/esata) before but it was even slower than the 3.0 port.

HDD is Seagate Free Agent GoFlex 1TB with USB 3.0 Not sure the specs but P/N is 9Zf2A5-500. I think it should be 5400rpm. HDD connected to router via USB 3.0. Formatted as NTFS. If I hook it straight to my computer I get 75MB/s-85MB/s in either direction. If I leave it on USB 3.0 on the router and hook my laptop to the router with cat5 cable, I get 75MB/s write. With media prioritization, I only get 3MB/s read on cat5. With it disabled I get 75MB/s read.

The biggest issue I have at this point is that the shield tv read speeds from the attached drive are so horribly slow over SMB. I can't watch a video on Kodi. Oddly, if I use UPNP instead of SMB, I can watch the videos just fine... but that's not the preferred setup since upnp can't be a library. Also I can't see the transfer speeds over UPNP so I have no idea if it's faster than SMB or not.

You have been way more help for me than Linksys. If you have any other ideas, I welcome them. Thanks

 

[sfx2000]

Thanks SFX. I have disabled media prioritization per your suggestion earlier. That got me a few more MB/s (megabyte, not bit) over wifi. Max speeds now are 10MB/s read or write on my laptop over wifi (2.4ghz). From an nvidia shield tv (android tv) on 5 ghz wifi, I still only can read from the drive at 2.7MB/s, which sucks since the whole point is for the attached storage to be the centralized media, and Kodi won't even play a video without freezing regularly over SMB.

I tried the other port (2.0/esata) before but it was even slower than the 3.0 port.

HDD is Seagate Free Agent GoFlex 1TB with USB 3.0 Not sure the specs but P/N is 9Zf2A5-500. I think it should be 5400rpm. HDD connected to router via USB 3.0. Formatted as NTFS. If I hook it straight to my computer I get 75MB/s-85MB/s in either direction. If I leave it on USB 3.0 on the router and hook my laptop to the router with cat5 cable, I get 75MB/s write. With media prioritization, I only get 3MB/s read on cat5. With it disabled I get 75MB/s read.

The biggest issue I have at this point is that the shield tv read speeds from the attached drive are so horribly slow over SMB. I can't watch a video on Kodi. Oddly, if I use UPNP instead of SMB, I can watch the videos just fine... but that's not the preferred setup since upnp can't be a library. Also I can't see the transfer speeds over UPNP so I have no idea if it's faster than SMB or not.

Hmm... sounds like maybe we have more than one issue to solve... I'm trying to get my head around this in more detail, but if I'm reading it correctly, your setup is like below:

1) WRT1900ac - gigE to desktop/laptop is all good - around 75MB/Sec w/o Media Prioritization
2) WiFi performance for Write/Read over 2.4GHz and 5GHz is poor relative to wired - it'll rarely get close, but 10MB/Sec on the Laptop 2.4GHz is still a bit on the slow side
3) nVidia Shield TV box - very poor performance over SMB - note that the nVidia box, if I read the specs right, it a 2*2:2 802.11ac, so WiFi should be good if coverage is good...
4) uPNP seems to stream well (DLNA? via the Twonky Media Server in the WRT?)

A couple of things to try --

1) Attach the GoFlex direct to the Shield box - see what happens there
2) Rule out if WiFi is an issue by temporarily using the GiGE connection on the Shield and see what happens with SMB and DLNA/uPNP

Report back - I'm adding a couple of pics below based on some quick research over the Google to see if we're aligned on the HW being used...

 

[mountain_man]

Thanks SFX. Yes you are right about the HW specs and are correctly describing the performance I experience. The 2.4 ghz laptop is about 5 feet from the router too so best signal possible. By upnp, yes I meant DLNA via Twonky. Also, you are correct that the shield TV is supposed to have excellent wifi bandwidth.

When the GoFlex is directly attached to the nvidia shield tv, I get 45MB/s read when copying a file from the external drive to the main memory.

If the shield tv is plugged into the router with cat5, I get 25MB/s - 45MB/s read speeds from the drive.

I have a movie playing on Kodi through SMB on the shield tv when connected via cat5 to the router and it hasn't frozen yet (which it normally would have a while ago).

Ideas? I'm still thinking that the router has an issue with SMB storage over wifi. It would be another Linksys bug but maybe for some reason I need to disable the upnp server for SMB to work properly?

 

[sfx2000]

Based on your results - I don't think this is a Samba client/server issue - seems more specific to WiFi...

I'm thinking this is a Marvell/Broadcom interoperability issue that I've seen before...

1) Go to the Wireless settings in the WRT, and check 2.4GHz, ensure that auto channel is not selected, mode is B/G/N-mixed, and 20MHz channels only
2) 5GHz - Auto mode (A/N/AC), channel width to auto, and select either Ch48 or Ch149

Give that a try...

Quirks - Marvell, in 2.4GHz, if set to auto tries to do VHT40/20 (11ac), and some chipsets can get into a bad state - I've seen this first hand with Broadcom/Realtek/Intel - to fix this - put the radio into B/G/N mode - nothing lost, as TurboQAM clients are far and few between...

The other Quirk is in 5GHz, where if it is allowed to auto-tune channels, it'll put the Primary one up from the secondary (so for example, CH153 as primary, CH149/157/161 as secondaries, with 155 being the "AC channel" - again, some chipsets get into an odd state here, esp. if one also has legacy clients on the same radio

 

[mountain_man]

Thanks for all your help sfx. I tried these settings but still only get max 2.7MB/s transfer from the drive to the shield tv main storage over 5ghz wifi. Is the 5ghz configured properly? I don't see "auto" under network mode, only "mixed". Maybe I should try setting to AC only?

Besides the settings below, I also tried the 5ghz on channel 149 like you suggest but it's the same speed.

The security is WPA2 Personal. Not sure if that might make a difference.

 

[sfx2000]

Hmmm... and for testing purposes, different SSID's are the 2.4 and 5GHz sides, I'm assuming..

How far away from the WRT is the Shield? How many walls between (if any) - 5GHz doesn't travel as far as 2.4, which I'm assuming you are aware of..

There's not much else we can try..

There's a debug script that dumps a huge amount of useful info -- http://myrouter.local/sysinfo.cgi

Don't post the output here, as it may expose passwords and unique info - but feel free to PM me with the info....

 

[mountain_man]

Correct, 2.4 has a different ssid than 5ghz.

The shield device is 15 - 20 feet from the router. It's in the room underneath so it has to go through 1 floor (from upstairs to main floor) but that's it. The shield tv shows full bars and "excellent" signal strength. I could sideload some wifi analyzer app to get more precise if it helps.

I'll send you the log. I'll also try connecting the shield via 2.4ghz to see if that's any faster.

 

[mountain_man]

SFX.. by PM, do you mean start a conversation? That's the only option I see when I click on your profile. Problem is that the log is too long so it won't let me post it. And it doesn't allow attachments so I can't put it in a text file for you either.

 

[mountain_man]

2.4ghz was slightly slower than 5ghz. Maybe we could trade emails and I could send you the debug log as a txt file?

 

[sfx2000]

Hmmm... and for testing purposes, different SSID's are the 2.4 and 5GHz sides, I'm assuming..

How far away from the WRT is the Shield? How many walls between (if any) - 5GHz doesn't travel as far as 2.4, which I'm assuming you are aware of..

There's not much else we can try..

There's a debug script that dumps a huge amount of useful info -- http://myrouter.local/sysinfo.cgi

Don't post the output here, as it may expose passwords and unique info - but feel free to PM me with the info....

mountain_man and I have been working thru this issue on sidebar - looks like it might be an issue with the Shield TV and the broadcom drivers - seeing a lot of dropped unicast frames...