wireless router for home office nas and netflix streaming

[dhex]

hello good people:

i haven't had to buy a wireless router in many a year (i have an old d-link that's chugging along) so i'm acclimating myself to all this n this and gigabit that and dual channel etc etc stuff.

my wife's storage and backup needs for her phd research led me into buying a simple nas for our home. (seagate ba 220)

our immediate backup needs are regular backups of a 5gb (and growing) research archive once a week. more importantly, we're going to add a wd hd tv live unit + play-on so she can stream netflix to the tv while working at home/doing child care, as well as playing video + mp3s from the nas.

she works from a lenovo r61i laptop. (i only have a wired workstation) her technical confidence level is very low, so i'd take greater stability over greater speed. i don't mind having to fotz to set things up correctly, but i really do need a set it and forget it solution.

the dir-825 seems fairly well regarded; is it worth spending the extra 60 bucks or so for the netgear 3700? or is it overkill? should i just tell her to stream netflix from my wired pc and go for something else instead?

thanks for any help.

edit: forgot to add two things - 1: don't do a lot of p2p stuff, so that's not a major concern 2: baby monitors are going to be within 20 feet of this thing on the regular.

 

[thiggins]

the dir-825 seems fairly well regarded; is it worth spending the extra 60 bucks or so for the netgear 3700? or is it overkill? should i just tell her to stream netflix from my wired pc and go for something else instead?

Depends on the distance between router and clients and wall / ceiling construction.
The good news is that Netflix bandwidth requirements are relatively low (vs. streaming uncompressed ripped DVDs or, worse, HD video).

If you can try the 825 and returning it for little or no restock, go ahead.

2: baby monitors are going to be within 20 feet of this thing on the regular.

Forget about reliable streaming using the 2.4 GHz band then, unless you know your monitors don't use the 2.4 GHz band. Otherwise, you'll need to do the streaming in 5 GHz, which will reduce your distance.

 

[dhex]

got the 3700, and it works beautifully with everything. thanks for the advice and running this great site.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for the report. Glad to help.