A few years ago I asked for some router recommendations.

Based upon that discussion, I have a Linksys WRT54GL 1.1 4-port router with DD-WRT installed. At approximately 5W energy consumption, the device has worked great for the past several years. Thanks everybody!

Oh, how a few years can change the scenery.

I have two machines with on-board 1Gbps NICs. Today I transferred a couple of ISO files from one to the other and the transfer speeds were close to 80 Mbps. Pretty close to the theoretical maximum of 100 Mbps. Not bad.

Although still functional, I think I'll start researching newer routers capable of supporting 1Gbps devices. I probably should opt for more than four ports this time too as I have five boxes here and perhaps more around the corner. The new device should support wireless computers.

I appreciate recommendations based upon your experiences with 1Gbps routers. The router should support flashing to free software such as DD-WRT or Tomato.

Thanks again!

I am currently searching for a similar device. In my case, wireless support is not needed but it will probably have it anyway, since most models are sold with the feature. My best candidate so far is the following router:

http://www.linksysbycisco.com/EU/en/products/WRT320N

You could use that plus a gigabit switch to add more ports, because 8-port gigabit routers are quite expensive and not worth it, at least the ones I've found. I don't know if it supports flashing the device with a different firmware. I don't plan to do that.

Have you looked on the DD-WRT website to see what routers are supported? I've found that the forums and hw database there EXTREMELY helpful.

Currently have a WRT54GS V7 running ddrt micro. Works great.

They should have gigabit routers listed there

Hmm. For my older machines my Linksys WRT54GL is not a bottleneck and could serve as a bridge. So perhaps I need only 4 ports with the new router.

I'll give that a try too.

Linksys/Cisco makes great hardware, it's their firmware which is occasional garbage. I have a Linksys WRT150N. Since DD-WRT upgrade last year I really love it. Average uptime has gone from a couple days to a few months.

My uptime has been over 1 year...Gotta love Linux on routers...lol

I need a wireless router capable of distances in excess of 100' and through walls. The reviews I read don't offer a clear picture of what I should be purchasing. Can anyone offer some advice based on experience? TIA

I browsed the customer reviews at Newegg for 1 Gbps Linksys routers. Seems there is a high dissatisfaction rate for all of them. Could be the firmware. Possibly those complaints would disappear after flashing to DD-WRT or Tomato?

That's common for just about every router out there. Follow the advice posted above, and get an 8 port switch. No reason to replace a piece of equipment that is working flawlessly.

We use 2 DLink green 8 port gigabit switches daisy chained to a WRT 54GL with Tofu firmware. DDWRT has too many features we don't need, plus Tofu has been working for 4+ years without a hitch.

This is new territory for me. Do I understand correctly that I connect my two gigabit machines to the switch, connect the switch uplink port to a port on the router, and connect all remaining machines in the LAN to either the router or switch?

Second, do I understand correctly that there is no firmware in a switch like in the router? That the switch is (semi-intelligent) hardware and a pass-through device?

Like this one?

It is actually that simple. I know it goes against our experiences, nothing is ever easy, but this truly is Machine to Machine over NFS, we hit our drive's limit - 60-80MB/s. Using iperf we see 99% efficiency.

We also have that 5 port switch you linked to. They do not have uplink ports, but auto sensing ports. Smart switches. To keep things sane we plug the uplink into the last port, and the PCs into 1-6. We keep the port next to the uplink empty. I'm unsure if this is actually still needed with today's equipment, just an old routine that used to be required in the past.

Boy, this brings back memories...Making crosslink cables at our desks...sigh...Programming a 'mini computer' for BASIC with binary switches..Reboots took two hours...TTY machines...10" floppys..A 'modem' was a MODEM, had to put the handset in the little cups..

You young whipper snappers have it easy.

Progress is not ALL bad (Except Vista)

Sounds great. Hmm. If I leave the three older 10/100 machines connected to the router's built-in switch, plug the gigabit switch into the fourth port of the router, and then connect the new gigabit computers to the switch, I still have capacity for 3 more hard-wired machines. All for an additional $30. Or for an additional $10, buy an 8-port switch and have future capacity for 6 more computers. I could have a small LAN party. Not!

And I'm still not using the wireless option of the router.

Yes, seems contrary to experience. Too simple!

If you have time, please share why you chose that firmware. Thanks much!

4 or 5 years ago I posted in the DSLR forums about an issue with the WRT54GL's nat table constantly being over flooded. I was advised to try the Tofu firmware, it fixed the problem.

Over the years I've tried DDWRT and Tomato. They worked, but I found DD-WRT to have slightly lower throughput than Tofu, I still needed to clear the NAT table once every 2 or 3 months, so many more features than I would ever need or want. I don't recall what I didn't like about Tomato, perhaps it was the UI. IIRC, it's all red and looked funky? We have a 15Mbs pipe that gets maxed out with Tofu, I could never max it out with DD-WRT, it would stay between 14.2 and 14.5, weird. I know they have updates to the firmware that claim to fix this, I got tired of doing the firmware shuffle, and went back to what always worked.

Tofu offers exactly what I need - stability, static routes, and decent filtering. Never needed nor wanted anything more that the other firmwares offer.

Tofu is no longer an active project. Tofu and Tomato are both based on HyperWRT, so if you are looking for a newer version with similar performance and features, Tomato is probably the best option.

I've been a long time user of OpenWRT. I have the old OpenWRT WhiteRussian release running back east, and it has been 100% stable and has the features I need. I installed OpenWRT Kamikaze on my new router and have been disappointed. There is a bug in port forwarding which, over time, causes packets to be forwarded to a different port. The bug-fix has been committed to SVN but a new build hasn't been released, and I haven't taken the time to compile my own build. It really bums me out since the dev's have known about the bug for well over a year. Port forwarding is a basic feature, and for them to leave it broken for so long really irks me. Therefore, I cannot recommend OpenWRT at this time. However, I am keeping and eye out for the next release. https://dev.openwrt.org/milestone/Kamikaze 8.09.2

I've been debating a switch to DD-WRT or Tomato. DD-WRT has a very comprehensive set of documentation and a large user base. On the other hand, Tomato has some really cool bandwidth graphs and QOS tools. Both firmwares are stable and current. OpenWRT Kamikaze does not use the NVRAM for anything (very cool), and it also works on a larger set of hardware than DD-WRT or Tomato.