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I am coming from a netgear R7450, trying to figure out a current equivalent with similar range

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dyer4789

Occasional Visitor
Hello,
I am stuck trying to get a new router, or maybe the same one, but here is my situation:

Background:
I currently have AT&T fiber with 500Mbps, forced to use their hardware, a Pace 5268 which has a built in router, started as DSL, and worked its way up over the past 8 years. The pace router that I have to have can generally cover my house fine, it's 1000 sq ft, basically a rectangle and the router is located centrally. It does not reach my detached garage about 75 feet away well enough to be usable. I got the R7450 in 2017 on sale because I read it had good range, and it very much made my situation better. It does reach the garage and allow me to stream TV out there without any issue while working out.

On my wi-fi network I use 3 cell phones, 2 tablets, 4 smart TVs, 1 streaming stick (rarely used), a smart speaker, 2 smart humidifiers, 2 laptops my security system, and one Wi-fi thermostat. No device on wi-fi is supports AX and some of the smart devices can only do 2.4ghz. Hardwired into the R7450 is my work laptop and three xbox systems. For the most part, these devices have all been the same for 3-4 years now, although second xbox came a couple years ago and then we got the third one another last month. I utilize the NAS feature on the r7450, and the uPNP on the r7450 allows all of the xbox systems to keep open nat.

About 6-9 months ago the R7450 started acting up. I was having issues getting connected at times, issues with throughput, etc. I factory reset the router, updated firmware and reset, etc, and the problem was still there. So I moved everything back over to the pace, and that basically works for everything I have, except, can't reach the garage, and I can't move all of the xboxes on there. The pace does not support uPNP, and since I can only port forward on one xbox, the other two are not open nat and we had problems with the kids and wife joining games together. The r7450 wired ports seems to all work fine, so that is how we are doing the xbox systems right now. From time to time I will test out the wi-fi on it, and it can work sometimes, but sometimes not. So I don't think it was a problem of too many devices because it happens with just one on the wi-fi.

So, normally I'd just leave it like this, and wait for it to stop working completly, but, there are some minor annoyances, such as now I have to enable the ftp:// for the NAT since the computers aren't on that network anymore, we use it to upload pictures, I can't get signal in the garage when I'm working out. I hate seeing the lower speeds I get from the pace device in the speed tests, although they are still 200+Mbps and realistically nothing critical doesn't work "right" since the gaming stuff is still connected by wire and working fine.

But, I still feel like I'd like to replace the router because maybe the wired portion will stop working too and I don't want to get stuck for days trying to decide what to do. Since I currently have no AX devices, nothing compatible with Wi-fi 6, I'm concerned I'm over thinking this too much. I would guess 5 years from now I would have faster fiber internet. I didn't generally have to pay extra to upgrade the speeds I have now, they just seemed to stop offering the things I had and kept pushing it up. What I had in the beginning I think 50-100Mbps were still suffecient, although I didn't have three xbox systems at that time, but even still, I did video calls and such for work without any problems. I'm not against buying another router 5 years from now though either.

I can still get a brand new R7450 at Walmart. I learned this was a Walmart exclusive. I got it for $99 on sale years ago, it's $129 now, but that's OK. I had saw on Amazon a Netgear RAX120 on sale for 220 and I almost bought it, but can't ignore all of the reviews with so many issues. I've made up my mind I'm going to buy something, but I'd like to find something that has a similar range to what I have now, can handle the devices I have now, can do NAS like I have now, and maybe be able to handle stuff that I could need that I would get in the next few years. If the pace router could handle all of the xbox systems, I would have just gotten something simple to extend my range to the garage and call it a day and maybe lose out on the NAS. But, I'd like to just repeat what I've had working the last 6 years or so. As a side note, I tried to mess around also with IPV6 on the pace router, but it seemed to never really work right, it was supposed to be able to fix the issues with the xboxes, but it just didn't seem to work well generally.
 
If the R7450 still does what you need, get another one and be happy. Anything else is going to involve some adjustments, and it's not clear you'd be making your life better. Furthermore, the WiFi situation is changing very quickly, with WiFi 6E coming online now and WiFi 7 about to become a thing. Buying something now with the idea that you might need it in a few years is a losing game: you'll pay top dollar for the latest gear, or buy something that's obsolete by the time you buy newer client gear, or quite possibly both. Better to wait till you do need it.

If you do want to spend some extra shekels right now, the part of what you've described that sounds the least good to me is relying on the router's NAS. Get an actual NAS box -- see the NAS forums on this site for recommendations. That will perform better and be more reliable than what you have, and there will be one less constraint on your choices when it does come time to upgrade the wireless side of things.
 
If the R7450 still does what you need, get another one and be happy. Anything else is going to involve some adjustments, and it's not clear you'd be making your life better. Furthermore, the WiFi situation is changing very quickly, with WiFi 6E coming online now and WiFi 7 about to become a thing. Buying something now with the idea that you might need it in a few years is a losing game: you'll pay top dollar for the latest gear, or buy something that's obsolete by the time you buy newer client gear, or quite possibly both. Better to wait till you do need it.

If you do want to spend some extra shekels right now, the part of what you've described that sounds the least good to me is relying on the router's NAS. Get an actual NAS box -- see the NAS forums on this site for recommendations. That will perform better and be more reliable than what you have, and there will be one less constraint on your choices when it does come time to upgrade the wireless side of things.
Ok thanks. The way I use the NAS is to dump pictures from Google Photos every so often. I also save them to an external hard drive and then my laptop. But, having it on the router allows us to pull them up when we travel for the holidays. It's very light use of it, and I know there are probably a lot of other ways but creature of habit kind of thing. But I think I'm going to just take your advice and buy the same router. Thanks again
 

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