Is e4200 an overkill?

[Migelo]

Hi everyone!

I found this forum via your great Router Charts and I said to myself that if I'm going to ask anybody about this it should be you guys. (this forum/site seems very well organised and informative)

The question is:

I have 2xPCs, two(most of the time one) laptop, a wireless printer, 2 smarthphones and recently acquired home server (4TB of RAID5 storage, everything is stored in there). I'm a heavy P2P user and HD movie enthusiast. So everything that I download is going to be uploaded(p2p) and streamed to PCs/laptops/smarthphones.
Also backups are going to be running on the server+a minecraft server 24/7

I have a TP-LINK cheap piece of plastic that doesn't even support 1Gbit ethernet and it has poor wifi range.

I'm looking for a very reliable and high performance wifi router. So far e4200 seems like a good buy, but is it an overkill?

Please post your thoughts/suggestions.

Regards, Migelo

 

[stevech]

Advise:
Get a gigabit switch. $35.
Connect most all of your LAN devices (including NAS) that you can to this switch. This keeps most LAN traffic off of the WiFi router, which may or may not have a real switch inside it for its LAN ports.

Connect one port on the switch to some decent WiFi router.
Connect router to your ISP cable/DSL modem.

 

[Migelo]

If I buy that switch, I still need to buy a decent wifi router so I think it's better to spend a bit more money on the router and have just one device instead of 2.

 

[lifespeed]

If I buy that switch, I still need to buy a decent wifi router so I think it's better to spend a bit more money on the router and have just one device instead of 2.

You might think. But there is a phrase to keep in mind; "jack of all trades, master of none". Also, keep in mind that ideal antenna location for best wireless coverage will not be the same spot where all your ethernet cables and modem converge.

I have found it makes sense to separate the wired router from wireless as it gives me the ability to select the features I want in each. Currently I am using an Engenius EAP9550 wireless access point. It has excellent performance. The router it connects to is a Draytek 2130, which I cannot recommend at the moment because it has some quirks (firmware bugs?) when used with VoIP. I also use a Netgear GS716v2 switch to provide enough ports.

I intend to replace the Draytek router with pFsense 2.0.

 

[Migelo]

So the best idea then would be to buy something like:

http://www.avtera.si/src/article.php?articleid=87041

for wired performance and keep my cheap piece of plastic for wireless(HD wifi streaming works fine)?