G+_Katherine Taylor Worth Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Hi KH folks! Does anyone know of a router that is able to handle gigabit speeds? I'm fortunate to live in Chattanooga where we can get gigabit ethernet, so I did. I purchased a so-called "gigabit router," to be specific, a Buffalo Airstation WZR-1750DHPD running DD-WRT. I thought we were all set, but what I discovered is that although the ports are gigabit, the device can't route at actual gigabit speeds. In fact, the speed drops to less than half of the speed that we have coming in. So, instead of getting approximately 950Mbps it drops the speed to about 250Mbps. Still blazing fast, of course, but when one has got 950 Mbps available, one likes to be able to use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_610GARAGE Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 I would highly recommend running pfsense (or something similar) on a computer for a router. It installs like freenas, with the exception of setting up your wan/lan nics (network interface cards). That way, you can use something that actually has the horsepower and ram to move the data around instead of a plastic router. P.S Very jealous :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Katherine Taylor Worth Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 How cool! I had never heard of pfsense. What a great idea! Thank you. I will investigate it. P.S. Used to live in NYC. Miss a lot about the big city, but the Internet speeds here blow away anything I could get up there. I hope more people can get access to gbit speed internet soon! It's amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_John Mink Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 I had a friend who used to run Vyatta (now VyOS) and preferences in using one over the other? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Katherine Taylor Worth Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 Interesting! I'm taking a look at it now. I had no idea that there were so many open source routing tools out there. Now the challenge is trying to choose one and figure out how much hardware is needed for the job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_John Mink Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Katherine Taylor Worth yeah, that happens alot :p Hopefully you find one you like! let us know what you choose, how you like it, and so on! I might do this myself....at some point! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_610GARAGE Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 For hardware, May I suggest a motherboard with an onboard cpu. I have one that is made by Asus. It has a built in power supply too, so all I needed was ram and a case. There a bit harder to find now for some reason, but the plus with this setup is that it sips power (compared to a full on desktop computer). Mine only draws 40 watts including the cable modem and a network switch. Which, granted is a lot compared to a normal router, but it is allot more powerful, and stable. Also, to aid your search, I think the software is referred to as a firewall os, and here is a list that I found. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_router_and_firewall_distributions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 I've found this comparison chart to be pretty accurate: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/view I should also note that your 1750DHPD is the spitting image of the 1750DHP, but is much slower with routing. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_John Mink Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 now all we need is a cross reference between this chart and an 'ease of putting better router firmware' on the device :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Katherine Taylor Worth Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 I love the KH community! I went from dead stuck to a ton of great ideas! John Mink I agree. I would like to see some sort of comparison chart showing how these alternative open source router software varieties perform speed wise and in terms of ease of use. I'm puzzled as to why the Buffalo I got is so much slower than what is shown in the list Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ posted. 'Course, I got it 'cause I wanted DD-WRT, but now I'm wondering if DD-WRT can't handle the amount of bandwidth I'm throwing at it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Katherine Taylor Worth Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ Thank you, thank you, thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Katherine Taylor Worth Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 610bob Thank you for the hardware suggestions. I'm going to look into it. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_610GARAGE Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 The slower speeds you are seeing could be caused by DD-WRT not being optimized for the routers cpu. It could also be from other services running that are taking up cpu cycles. If you are bored, it may be worth disabling all features to see if that gives you a speed bump. Or, if you are really bored, revert back to the original firmware. I would be curious to see the result of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Katherine Taylor Worth Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 I like that idea. I'll try turning off everything I can find. Unfortunately, I can't go back to a stock build in this case. I would if I could just to see if it makes a difference with the speed. This router is sold by Buffalo with DD-WRT pre-installed. (I thought it'd be a little time savings....Hah!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_John Mink Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Katherine Taylor Worth I made the same mistake myself! But it's a forked version >_> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Katherine Taylor Worth Posted July 19, 2014 Author Share Posted July 19, 2014 Really? I wonder if I can load a stock version of DD-WRT on it and see what happens. Would at least be an interesting comparison. Surely I can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_John Mink Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Oh, you certainly can! I've been meaning to do that myself >_> the DD-WRT page seems to have good instructions. http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Buffalo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Katherine Taylor Worth Posted July 19, 2014 Author Share Posted July 19, 2014 We're going to try it. I'll let you know how it goes. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Katherine Taylor Worth Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 Update. Tried stock DD-WRT. To be exact: DD-WRT v24-sp2 (06/23/14) std (SVN revision 24461) Same speeds as the buffalo version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_John Mink Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Yay update. Boo same speeds :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Mark Ebbinghoff Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 Would you consider building your own? I am really happy with a router I put together form spare parts. Older PC hardware, but I did spring for new intel gigabit nic's with PFsense (https://www.pfsense.org) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Katherine Taylor Worth Posted August 2, 2014 Author Share Posted August 2, 2014 Perhaps. I tried pfsense on a pc, and it handled gigabit speeds. Then, tried it on a fanless computer with an Intel Atom, and it only reaches about 600MB. I liked fanless because the router needs to be in the room with the TV. I don't know why the Intel Atom can't handle Gigabit speeds though, because PFsense indicates that the processor is not overtaxed. I'm wondering if the motherboard is too slow. I don't know. Am puzzled (and I realize that this is a priveleged problem to have). I think I'll try VYoS just to see if there is a speed difference. I could go with one of the routers from the list that Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ linked to, but I like the greater number of options that open source projects have. Sooo.... I don't know yet if it's possible to build something, fanless, and yet with hardware fast enough to run an open OS at Gig speeds. I am also looking into 610bob 's suggestion of Asus hardware. So, the short of the long is that I'm happy to hear any more suggestions, including building my own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Mark Ebbinghoff Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 It is most likely the onboard nic causing the bottleneck. Any reading I have done has indicated that if performance is a top priority that intel nic's are the only ones to use. Hopefully your setup can accomodate one dual port intel nic, or a couple of single port ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_John Mink Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 I second Mark Ebbinghoff's conclusion. Everyone in the FreeNAS community swears by Intel NICs and claim that everyone else has various levels of cheating :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Katherine Taylor Worth Posted August 2, 2014 Author Share Posted August 2, 2014 Interesting. You are likely correct that the onboard NICs hinder performance. We worked on it more today, and I did try VyOS. It was a very different experience for me. VyOS is all command line driven. It is, on this hardware, able to achieve close to 1GB speeds. I think for my needs, this may be what I use: http://amzn.to/1pxq2ag running VyOS. If I had a bit more space and money, I would rather use pfsense, which has a gui and lots of nice features. Further, in our initial tests with pfsense on a workstation pc that had intel nics, pfsense was able to achieve gigabit speeds. So, pfsense in a slightly different scenario, would be my preference. But, for the time being, for those who are interested, VyOS is able to achieve fast, fast speeds on lower end hardware. PFsense can do it too, but you need to really pay attention to the hardware that you use with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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