New home LAN setup

[drozwood90]

For router/firewall needs check out SonicWall. They have a range of good products from SOHO to Enterprise. The TZ-100 makes a nice home unit when you need VPN features.

http://www.firewalls.com/

For switches I use HP ProCurve.

For wireless access points I use EnGenius. SonicWall has a nice line of wireless access points but they are more then most folks need for home use.

http://www.keenansystems.com/store/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?&keywords=engenius

I think I agree about, if you budge on the firmware-mods. DD-WRT.

If not, I've used a Sonicwall in the past. I would say comparable to DD-WRT, they cost more, and I used to have to reset the thing once every 2-3 week (this was going on 10 years or so ago...so I'm sure they have improved now). Contacted the company I used to use for this...apparently they still use the same router, had a firmware update some time after I left the company. I'm told it resolved the reboot issue.

--Dan

 

[fwd03]

I have good luck with Buffalo wireless routers. They are high power devices, have much better result than Linksys I tried before.

 

[pete_c]

I currently utilize the Buffalo, Linksys and Asus DD-WRT versions and am pleased with the three different manufacters routers as long as they are running DD-WRT.

The continued support over the years for the DD-WRT OS and familiarity with the same OS for different HW is what keeps me using them.

In the middle/late 1990's I also used Sonic wall SOHO firewalls; they did do the job. I remember though paying for the licenses / subs/ continued support for the different features of said SOHO boxes. While the whole subscription / updating licensing thing works the small office / enterprise environment; not sure how well it works for the home SOHO environment or if folks just let it lapse after a time. That said I do update the FW OS on the DD-WRT boxes should one be updated. I do the same with the subs on the Smoothwall firewall (although they are free) on a monthly basis.

 

[tmbrown97]

People I know who support small businesses will often refuse to support Linksys - they're crap products that haven't gotten any better since Cisco purchased them. And the worst part is, when they fail, they don't fail all at once where it's obvious - they just start needing to be reset all the time - and you get intermittent network issues that are a nightmare to troubleshoot.

The very last linksys product I used (after replacing so many dead home routers for myself and all the other families I help out) was a small office 8-port switch... after determining it was the cause of hours and hours of banging my head against the wall, it found its final demise under the tires of my suburban - about 20 times. I almost mailed it to linksys in an envelope.

Netgear's small office products have been pretty good in my opinion - in fact I'm close to swapping my home router for one of their pro ones that supports VPN. I've had very few failures with netgear over the years and the ones I had were explainable - and when they died it was all at once with no mystery about it.

Also linksys Access Points seem to have a really inferior range when compared to other makers.

 

[pete_c]

I think that Cisco appears to have downgraded even more the Linksys hardware quality.

I mentioned Linksys relating to the DD-WRT OS.

Running this OS on the "old" Linux based Linksys WRT-54GL version of the Linksys AP today on one that is close to 6 years or so 24/7; no hiccups; not "burned up" yet.