Need some advice for a new router

[RightClickHarder]

I have been on a lookout for a new router, and I have narrowed it down to two routers that would do the job for me, the ASUS RT-AC66U and RT-AC56U.
I live in an apartment, so range should not be an issue. I can get the AC66U for around the same price as the AC56U, but the USB 3.0 and better processor in the AC56U seems pretty compelling to me since that could be useful for a poor man's media server.
If I don't need the better range, which router would be the best choice for the same price?

 

[sinshiva]

well, it's as you've noted, they both serve slightly different purposes. with the ac56, i noticed that 2.4ghz was decent, but perhaps no better range than internal antenna linksys routers i've used like the e2000. of course, 2.4ghz is highly congested at my apartment complex. i imagine that while the 5ghz range may not have been magnificent, it would have significantly outperformed 2.4ghz with a decent client wlan card.

that said, the 2.4ghz range would have been adequate for a 1600sqft apartment, etc if you only needed it for a handful of devices and could rely on 5ghz for more meaningful tasks.

if you need better range, then i'd go with the ac66. my n66 absolutely blew the ac56 away in range.

the next most important consideration might be vpn performance, before NAS features imo. assuming this device is to function as both your router and AP, the ac56 will significantly outperform the ac66.

as far as NAS performance goes, i find both routers to perform similarly, probably due their inadequate quantity of ram. my n66 under ideal conditions, wired connection and an overclock (662mhz) was getting 18mb/s while my ac56 at 1.4ghz topped out around 33mb/s using the same highly compressed video files. for the n66, i used a usb2 flashdrive that came free with some memory a few years back and for the ac56 i used a +100mb/s read usb3 flash drive (sandisk ultra)

with files under 300mb (around the total memory capacity or less of the ac56) i saw massive throughput, +60mb/s but as soon as memory fills up with disk cache, it slows to ~32mb/s. no amount of swap, samba tweaking or kernel tweaking will improve this.

so, if you want to stream video from the router to a couple clients, even the ac66 should handle the task fine. add a few more and the ac56 shines, it's quite a capable router. if you want to move large binary like files between high capacity drives, one being attached to the router, then you may be disappointed. the point of this is mostly to say not to let nas performance to weigh heavily on your decision, for now. right now, the best soho router for the task is lacking in a few features one might expect in a router made a decade after this millenia began

 

[stevech]

as far as NAS performance goes, i find both routers to perform similarly, probably due their inadequate quantity of ram. my n66 under ideal conditions, wired connection and an overclock (662mhz) was getting 18mb/s while my ac56 at 1.4ghz topped out around 33mb/s using the same highly compressed video files. for the n66, i used a usb2 flashdrive that came free with some memory a few years back and for the ac56 i used a +100mb/s read usb3 flash drive (sandisk ultra)

with files under 300mb (around the total memory capacity or less of the ac56) i saw massive throughput, +60mb/s but as soon as memory fills up with disk cache, it slows to ~32mb/s. no amount of swap, samba tweaking or kernel tweaking will improve this.

Please know that "32mb/s" is not clear as to if that is 32 megaBytes/second or megabits/sec. The convention is "B" for Bytes and "b" for bits.
Native is usually much faster, esp. for writing files.


Also, for router as NAS, speed differs quite a bit base on whether the drive is formatted as (default) NTFS, or is FAT, or best speed: is reformatted to Linux native ext4.

 

[sinshiva]

Also, for router as NAS, speed differs quite a bit base on whether the drive is formatted as (default) NTFS, or is FAT, or best speed: is reformatted to Linux native ext4.

true, however in my tests i was using the tuxera driver for ntfs/hfs which was giving me the same performance as ext3, ext4 and both with journaling disabled. i found the tuxera driver to bring the filesystem performance to essentially native levels; i was impressed.

that said, i'd still, of course, recommend using ext3/4 if one intends to leave a drive attached to the router and/or to be used with entware/optware

 

[RightClickHarder]

Let's say I don't care about USB performance and I won't ever run a VPN on my router. In that case, the AC66U would be the best if I understand correctly.

On the other hand, if I want to use the VPN functionality or I want to attach storage to my router, the AC56U would be the better choice, right?

 

[sinshiva]

Let's say I don't care about USB performance and I won't ever run a VPN on my router. In that case, the AC66U would be the best if I understand correctly.

On the other hand, if I want to use the VPN functionality or I want to attach storage to my router, the AC56U would be the better choice, right?

that is correct