Taking WD My Net n900 to the shooting range. Please recommend a replacement.

[Andrew LB]

So I've finally decided to put a stop to the endless frustration with my POS Western Digital My Net n900, the biggest waste of money i've ever made on an electronic device.... and need some suggestions as to what I should buy.

One requirement is that it needs to be an 802.11AC wireless router because i'll be getting a new iphone in a couple months and word on the street is it uses AC. Currently, my network consists of my desktop gaming PC, a 24" iMac, and a recently built media server which I may be getting one of those nice InfiniTV-6 cablecard HD-DVR cards for it so I can tell Time Warner to go shove their two $25/mo HD-DVR's where the sun don't shine.

I've been looking through the reviews and I'm looking at the new TP-Link Archer C7 since it's got great performance which i'm sure will improve with some new firmware, and the price is very appealing. I don't want to spend anywhere close to $200 like I did last time. I've never owned a TP-Link though. All my previous routers were that crap WD n900, Engenius, netgear, D-Link, and Linksys. It seems the Asus routers pretty much are the best but the price is painful for my wallet.

 

[sm00thpapa]

Keep checking Amazon the Asus RT-AC68U was $179.99 but just went back up to $219.99 today. If you want a basic AC router check out the Netgear R6050. It's an AC750 router. Just launched.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
One thing to keep in mind, it'd be nice if OP chooses
a router which can run on 3rd party f/w like dd-wrt,
Merlin's Tomato, etc. am pretty sure WD router is not even made by WD.

 

[stevech]

One requirement is that it needs to be an 802.11AC wireless router because i'll be getting a new iphone in a couple months and word on the

Personally, I wouldn't pay a big price premium for 11ac for just a smart phone's modest needs in speeds.

 

[theveterans]

You can go choose any AC1900 routers in the market right now. I'm using the WRT1900AC for speed and stability despite being crippled in features as of now.

 

[sm00thpapa]

You can go choose any AC1900 routers in the market right now. I'm using the WRT1900AC for speed and stability despite being crippled in features as of now.

Glad you have speed and stability with your WRT1900AC. Mine is collecting dust the 2.4 GHz band is horrible. Signal goes in and out and some devices can't even connect.

 

[theveterans]

Glad you have speed and stability with your WRT1900AC. Mine is collecting dust the 2.4 GHz band is horrible. Signal goes in and out and some devices can't even connect.

My 2.4 GHz band is disabled on WRT1900AC. I use my extremely reliable WNR3500L stock firmware as access point for 2.4 GHz band.

TurboQAM works on WRT1900AC as I confirmed with my laptop getting 173 Mbps link rate on Auto channel width mode (20/40 MHz), but I can't force 40 MHz mode on it due to being WiFi certified while WNR3500L just ignores nearby APs and does its channel bonding without a hitch. In any case, I have never tested WRT1900AC's 2.4 GHz radio and the stable and fast 5 GHz AC + very fast USB transfer speeds are the reasons I bought it. If ASUS RT-AC66U didn't experience performance issues after 10 days of uptime, I wouldn't even consider getting the Linksys.

 

[RogerSC]

Glad you have speed and stability with your WRT1900AC. Mine is collecting dust the 2.4 GHz band is horrible. Signal goes in and out and some devices can't even connect.

Another dust collector WRT1900AC here, waiting on firmware that stops the spontaneous reboots with the admin GUI up. No problem with the 2.4GHz. speed, though, just can't keep the admin GUI up, or I get random reboots.

Using Netgear R7000, currently with Victek's tomato firmware until Shibby puts out his tomato v121. Dd-wrt firmware works great on the R7000 as well *smile*.

 

[htismaqe]

Another dust collector WRT1900AC here, waiting on firmware that stops the spontaneous reboots with the admin GUI up. No problem with the 2.4GHz. speed, though, just can't keep the admin GUI up, or I get random reboots.

Why do you need to have the GUI up all the time?

Nearly 36 days, no reboots.

 

[RogerSC]

Why do you need to have the GUI up all the time?

Nearly 36 days, no reboots.

I like to monitor my home network, and to find problems as soon as possible. I should be able to monitor my home network, and have been able to monitor my home network with every other router I've ever had. Seldom change settings, though, once things are set up. If I had to bring up the GUI, chances are that the router would reboot at some point.

I have to say, never seen anything quite so lame in such an obvious way. Glad that I have R7000 to fall back on. R7000 is doing great, and I have the tomato RAF GUI up as we speak *smile*. Nice to have a choice of a couple of different, well-supported firmware sources, as well. For the WRT1900AC, all I can do is wait on Linksys/Belkin.

 

[htismaqe]

Not much monitoring available in the Linksys GUI to be honest. I do most of my health monitoring external to the device...

 

[AcostaJA]

I've an Buffalo WZR-1750dhp with Kong DD-WRT 24200 stable most features usable (samba transmission openvpn) 2 weeks w/o reboot, R7000 user report the same however the Buffalo sells for 125$ have 256mb/512mb ram/rom, good 2.4ghz range, mediocre 5ghz range, for the price is the best, I think as ddwrt matures on this Buffalo will top on popularity. At ddwrt I've read good comments on R7000 and seems a similar history with ddwrt, just received from Kong an usable stable build. ASAP KONG is free from few developments will began to build an special version of ddwrt for Linksys WRT1900AC, hope he reach stable releases soon to the best hardware. So I suggest wzr-1750dhp with Kong DD-WRT (latest beta or BS ddwrt also latest beta) if no complaints on range at 5ghz, if you need the best range then go for R7000 about asus I dont have reference don't discard a cheaper ac68u good comments too.

 

[RMerlin]

Hi,
One thing to keep in mind, it'd be nice if OP chooses
a router which can run on 3rd party f/w like dd-wrt,
Merlin's Tomato, etc. am pretty sure WD router is not even made by WD.

It's designed by Alpha Networks, same company that designs the WDTV.