Very New to my RT-N66U; Question about NFS vs SMB

[ringding]

Hello, Mr./Mrs. Merlin:
I got my ASUS RT-N66U when i burned through about five Linksys WRT54G's, and if i am not mistaken, you had a lot to do wit the CFW on those, yes yes? Long time fan of your work, and as soon as i am employed i'll be donating to you... you deserve it. The RT-N66U is a great router out of the box but it had horrific reviews online with the stock firmware. Funny, tho, some reviews i read said it was the bee's knee's (or what's that phrase?) Anyway, i thre in your firmware and BAM. Suddenly it worked. I mean, it was day and night. I think ASUS puts out HW and waits for you to post FW and then uses it for their own. Which they should. Thanks for helping so many of us, and i really hopee you will still support the N devices in this family of routers.... i have no AC devices so i grabbed up a "Dark Night". Also, I liked the fact that it was named "The Dark Knight". How rad is that??
So i am running "older" CFW (says version 374.41 ) because last time i looked i nabbed the newest CFW you posted for my RT-N66U, but after the flash i noticed two things... 1.) There was a small but distinct "Merlin-Magician Hat" graphic on the initial page. LOVED IT!! Then i went to stream some 720p DTS movie from the 2TB WD USB 3.0 Passport HDD (That's plugged into the RT-N66U and acts as a NAS for movies) to my ASUS TF300T 10.1" tablet and no matter the player (old standalone's like BS Player and Dice that can still do DTS and AC3 bc most new players had to remove support for HW downmixing on android) and also on other machines (OSX 10.6.8 WiFi 2.4Ghz, OSX 10.10.2 WiFi 5Ghz) with various players (VLC and XBMC/Kodi) using SMB shares on aforementioned RT-N66U weren't working they skipped and stuff... i can stream 1080p/DTS to my ASUS TF300T tablet NO PROB on this version...

(I RAN MANY TESTS AND DID 100's OF REBOOTS BEFORE I FRANTICLY SEARCHED MY HDD AND FOUND THIS OLDER 374.41 AND NOW I CANT FIND THAT, I HAD MY HDD DIE AND TIMEMACHINE DIDNT RESTORE IT IN MY ~/Downloads dir) so i put this older version back in (lucky i saved it bc it's from way back--even the merlin hat is gone :-( but at least it has the blue lights on DIM (thats why you are getting money from me, for one reason!!) Nothing says "stealth" like turning off 10 rapid-firing BLUE lights!! Anywho, i get that "1st time jailbreaking" feeling when i do firmware upgrades now.... i LOVE how it works and i owe that to YOU... idk how ppl can stand the stock asus firmware.... so my question is... can i get a copy of the CFW i am on now, or export it? so that i can test some newer ones you have made? I saw that i can export "settings" and i'll do that as well, but the WiFi testing i need to stream mkvs from the RT-N66U and to a Raspberry Pi 2 B running OSMC (Raspbian/XBMC/Kodi) with cat5 works but the last time i had to revert i had to go back to this version--and i'd like a nice zipped/rared "package" of this one so i can test the new ones... AND know that i had an uncorrupted archive of the 374.41 i run now, for "FAILSAFE" reasons, ya know?
Can you tell me what i should do? I am going to download the newest version now (newest stable one) but if i need to revert to this 374.41 can i get a link? I don't think i see it listed even am i THAT far back?? Geeze heh. Well, thanks a million ASUS should be writing you checks... i have 3 "nerds" that tinker with LANs and PC's and we all have Dark Knights.... they saw mine and had to get their own new "shiny preciouses" Thanks sorry im so wordy but really i have spread the word of your work all around the Chicago suburbs... from Wheaton to the South Side!

 

[ahduck]

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/2324w3jh7e4q4/RT-N66U

http://www.mediafire.com/download/0axfdzkrtxamorx/RT-N66U_3.0.0.4_374.41_0.zip

374.41 is there.

 

[ringding]

YAY!! i found and dl'd RT-N66U_3.0.0.4_374.41_0.zip and that is what i am running so i have my "failsafe" CFW. I am not THAT far back--i shooda looked 1st, asked the questions after... I AM gonna nab and upgrade to RT-N66U_3.0.0.4_378.51_0.zip thats a huge jump--I liked the look of the page with the merlin hat... it reminds me of Gandolph meets the Cookie-Krisp Wizzard hehe but yeah i see that hat and i think of that stack of WRT56G's that have tomato on em and now are used just for the 4 port switches hehe since one N router is better than rigging a bunch of PoE AP's in this place i call home.

Unlike those "AT&T People" who get U-Verse and they make them put a modem/router in the middle of their house, like by the HDTV on the main floor, i have our DOCSIS 3 "gateway device" (we have phone service for the "older" occupants of the place) BRiDGED to my beloved RT-N66U in an office on the second floor, yet i can stream 1080p to a ASUS TF300T in the concrete BASEMENT of this place. From 3 FLOORS up. I can't WAiT to see what this build has as far as cool little extras. Oh the way you can set the time of the USB drives to "spin down" i like a lot as well. Thanks for that one. If you were me, would you use SMB sharing or switch over to NFS?? I can read and follow directions and i have a BS from "DeVry University" in TCOM/Data Network Management so "this ain't my FiRST rodeo".... but if all my media sits on the RT-N66U, what do YOU suggest i use to let the most people access the data. Sometimes there are 3 people watching 720p/DTS streams from one drive at the same time and NO PROBLEMS... sometimes 2 people on 2 DiFFERENT devices streaming 1080p/DTS files from the RT-N66U at the same time. 3 ppl watching 1080p media from one drive yeah its too much. But i can dream. I'll look around but do you maintain a single Change-log somewhere? i know theres one zipped in with the *.trx but i mean a master LOG??? Maybe you just add to the one in the zip... i shood look b4 i ask.. well i see i own the last "N" device you are posting files for OH NO!!! I'll put the new AC one on my X-Mas of 2016 list

 

[ringding]

Yes! hey man i didnt think anyone would read that even, thanks.... i just nabbed the failsafe and the new RT-N66U_3.0.0.4_378.51_0.zip... have to get a box-cutter and "fix some luggage" then its time to upgrade and maybe test NFS shares ;-)

Thanks fer the links!!

Long live the Dark Knight hehe.

Thanks again
~RiNG

 

[ringding]

i opened the txt in the zip of the failsafe as i call it, and there indeed is a changelog of sorts... in the 374.41 it says "
History
-------
374.41 (18-Apr-2014)
- NEW: Merged with Asus's 374_5047 GPL. Notable changes:".......etc..... i need to read more because A.) i have used tomato in soo many of the wrt56g linksys routers and does merlin work for asus? Shooot! So if i'm reading this correctly, the changelog goes bacwards with the newest stuff at the top, so the one i am on has that line on the top because the newest features and fixes and stuff are first... and then it goes back versions... so:
3.0.0.4.374.38 (11-Jan-2014):
This version isn't available for the RT-N16 or the SDK5 build
of the RT-N66U as support for the SDK5 platform is currently
broken. Please stick to 374.36 Beta 1 for the time being on
these two platforms.

Note that the RT-N66U did get a newer wifi driver, so give it a
try, as it might have resolved or at least improved on the wifi
range issues. (Since i started with 374.41 it would make sense that the wifi driver change i noticed was maybe from that. It was like from day to 'Knight' as I said before.)
Going to go and open the txt in the 378.51 and read it now. Thank you for documenting all the changes, this is great stuff... USB HUB support? That'll make for a NAS, not just a shared couple drives... good to know!! I should have documented what version gave me issues; unforch all i remember was it was AFTER 374.41 but BEFORE 2015, so i am very optimistic about going for the newest 378.51... must read...

OK this is ironic, i open the newest zip 378.51 and there's that read-me & a changelog.txt and the 1st lines say... "
378.51 (6-Mar-2015)
- CHANGED: Updated OpenSSL to 1.0.0q (no real code change)
- CHANGED: Split the changelog into a separate file (So there is literally a 'changelog' now;-)
If the next line says SMB vs NFS i'll consider myself psychic, i suppose....