We noticed in the SNB forums reference to a release note that refers to SmallNetBuilder.
That reference to SNB was only meant to be for internal use and should not have made it to the public release notes.
However, just to clarify the situation, we did not make the Firmware specially for SNB, nor has the firmware been altered in any way to mislead any performance test results.
Let me explain the those changes.
In previous Firmwares (eg: Dec 31, 2009), the Hardware NAT engine that is responsible for the very fast WAN to LAN routing, is disabled by default. There is an option in the GUI to enable the NAT engine.
When QoS settings are initiated with the Hardware NAT engine enabled, the routing performance drops down to roughly 200~300Mbps.
This is normal as the CPU needs to process more packet information. Our engineers at that time thought priority should be placed on the QoS setting and only allow the NAT engine to be enabled when QoS is disabled.
In the Jan 05, 2010 version, we thought that this is just too complicated for the typical user, and most users don't set any QoS. So we removed the option to enable/disable the NAT engine and just have it enabled by default. When the user sets any QoS settings, the NAT engine will disable automatically. This simplifies the setup and ensures the user has the best settings for their usage as we found that most users did not enable the NAT engine, even when they did not set any QoS.
This change is fully mentioned in the change log.
We already had planned to make the Jan 05, 2010 a public release firmware (as it is on the website), and it is on all units produced since that time. Our engineers also knew that we would be using this firmware on the unit submitted to SNB, so they made a remark on the "Internal use" release notes. But somehow, it was mistakenly placed onto the website.
I would also like to explain our Version numbering system.
You can notice that we do not increase our WEB version number for each firmware release.
For example there are many releases of V1.0.9.
You'll notice that the firmware filenames (APP and KNL) actually have 4 numbers. Those are the real version numbers.
However in the WEB GUI, we only show the first 3 numbers.
This is because internally, we have many firmware fixes that resolve very small bugs or only change default settings.
Our engineers deem those to be small changes, so the first 3 numbers don't change.
When there is a major change that affects the performance, base coding or Linux drivers, then the first 3 numbers will change.
So to summarize, the Dec 31, 2009 and Jan 05, 2010 firmwares have had no major changes done to alter the actual performance.
We only changed the default settings to simplify the set up process, and ensure the user has the best settings for their usage.
