Asus RT-N16

[Myiagros]

I have a question for anyone that has this router as I have been looking at it all week trying to figure out if I should get it to replace the crappy router at work.

Our current router(Linksys RV042) only supports 72 connections/sessions at a time. For the last couple weeks anytime alot of people are busy using the internet or downloading files the pppoe link drops from our router cutting out the connection for a minute or so, it's pretty much impossible to download any large files. At any time there are 10-15 people using the internet with multiple web pages and SSH tunnels open which is probably the reason why the POS Linksys can't keep up.

The question I have about the RT-N16 is in regards to the stated 300,000 connections. Does this only apply to using the Download Master or is it always in effect? It's probably a simple answer/dumb question but I don't want to go spend $100 on this router and then just get the same issues as I did before.

[JD]

I think in general. It has a very fast CPU and lots of RAM.

Though if you get it, it's probably wise to install DD-WRT on it.

[misterd]

I wouldn't try and even run 10 connections off a retail grade router... let alone more. Do you actually need wireless access or is this for a wired network? if you don't need all wireless go with a pc based router, (pfsense, ipcop, or one of the smoothwall forks) and add an access point for the wireless that can run dd-wrt as JD stated above.

[Myiagros]

We don't use any wireless in the office at the moment, it would just be something for customers that have to come in and need a connection, it can be added as a wireless router connected to one of our switches.

Misterd, do you mean to just use a computer as a router using software to do the routing jobs?

I take it that the router we have now just doesn't have enough power(cpu, ram) to handle the number of connections we have? What type of power would be needed to handle a large number of connections, our web server is running on an old P4 with 512MB ram, is that enough? If that is the case then going with a PC router would probably be a good idea. I have quite a bit of networking knowledge but college fails to teach people about these things.

[misterd]

Originally Posted by Myiagros

Misterd, do you mean to just use a computer as a router using software to do the routing jobs?

Absolutely!

These need a dedicated box with 2 network cards of some sort but they run a linux or bsd OS so the hardware requirements are extremely low end. Mine is a 1.8Ghz Celeron with 384MB of ram.

http://www.pfsense.org
pfSense Open Source Firewall Distribution - Minimum Hardware Requirements HW Reqs

SmoothWall Express
I haven't tried this one, but a lot are based from it.

IPCop
This is what I'm running now at a couple sites, I'm not sure if it's under development even still, but it works "dam good!"

[Myiagros]

Thanks for the links, I'll be sure to look into it. This current router is such a pos right now. I keep having to pause downloads every 50-70MB because it can't handle all the traffic.