New router - dual frequency, fast SMB, TimeMachine-compatible, bittorrent

[stasheck]

Hi everyone,
I've been looking through the forum and googling for it, but I failed to find the advice I'm looking for.

I'm living in a place that is congested with 2,4 wireless networks - I guess there are 15-20 I can see at any given time. It's to a point that laptop 3m from my WNDR3500L can't stream FullHD movies properly (possibly due to neighbors using bandwidth at the same time). Current router is also used as a NAS, which I'm quite satisfied with (although it could do reads/writes a bit faster).

Anyway, I'm on a lookout for a router that will:
- work on both 2,4 and 5GHz
- have capability of 300 Mbps
- be able to do Samba > 10MB R/W
- have bittorrent client
- allow to make TimeMachine backups
- have at least one USB port

For quite long time my favorite was Linksys E4200 V2 (it's faaast ), but I learned that it doesn't have Bittorrent client nor is able to be TimeMachine server. Right now I'm putting my bet on something from Netgear, but I'm at loss which model to buy.

Price is not that much of an issue. DD-WRT support would be useful, but if all the features above are provided in original firmware, I'm fine with that.

 

[sfx2000]

Be happy with what you have...

More apps you run on what should be an appliance, the more chances that it will be unstable.

If you want torrent and NAS - check out the dedicated NAS boxes/reviews/forums on this site.

 

[stasheck]

That's not very useful answer. I'm not happy with what I have, and I think I've given enough reasons. Also, I won't be happy with buying a separate NAS - I'm looking for a router with some extra functions.

Really, there is no advice? I thought maybe Netgear 4500, but maybe there's another suggestion?

 

[sfx2000]

Apologies if it's not a useful answer - but it is a practical answer.

I've got a bit of experience at designing things for production - what you're asking for can be done, but at a cost that most folks are not willing to pay for a commodity product. That is why there is nothing in the market...

Most SOHO routers have enough CPU horsepower and memory to handle the routing and firewall functions.

To get decent performance for Torrent and NAS functionality, I would recommend a dedicated NAS box - QNAP, Synology - they build decent units - and rather than have a half-baked SOHO router solution...

all the best, and good luck!

 

[TonyH]

Pardon me, you have a very unrealistic wish. No harm in wishing tho.

 

[wanttotree]

im not sure if its unrealistic, but i understand that asus rt-n56u/rt-n65u with custom firmware u could do almost every single thing on your list including the time machine backup. (http://code.google.com/p/rt-n56u/issues/detail?id=38).

 

[sfx2000]

im not sure if its unrealistic, but i understand that asus rt-n56u/rt-n65u with custom firmware u could do almost every single thing on your list including the time machine backup. (http://code.google.com/p/rt-n56u/issues/detail?id=38).

just none of it well considering the QA effort for the hacker builds...

 

[stevech]

A WiFi router can't be a good file server or multimedia server. If you're OK with slow speeds (say, 5MB/s), and most Lack of NTFS media support, fine. The lack of NTFS means your file sizes are limited to FAT32 sizes, for one thing.

There are non-techie metaphors - but you get the picture.