What does the Fox say?

[knight1fox3]

ASUS being my top choice and then probably Netgear or Linksys/Cisco.

So I'm going to bestbuy after work today, maybe even cut out a little early for that matter. Anyway, on your recommendations, I will look for one of these, with dual band and ext. antennas. I hope to keep the cost under $100.

Looks like they carry the ASUS RT-N56U. Still a good router but at a budget price. Doesn't have the external antennas but still reports a solid reliable connection with a slick interface. Price shows $87 online.

The Netgear Nighthawk would be pretty awesome too. But isn't within your price point. It does look like a stealth fighter though. :thumbs:

Actually, though contradictory to what I wrote above, this could be another option that hits all of your requirements: Buffalo WZR-600DHP. This particular model has rated high on some of the "best-of-the-best" lists. Dual band, has external antennas, and within your price range. But I cannot speak to it's reliability as what I've read about past Buffalo products is that they tend to experience misc. nuisance issues. Perhaps they've improved their products some since then.

 

[NJmike PE]

Looks like they carry the ASUS RT-N56U. Still a good router but at a budget price. Doesn't have the external antennas but still reports a solid reliable connection with a slick interface. Price shows $87 online.

Ok, since no one had it available in store pick up today, I went with this one and ordered it online. Thanks Jedi Master Fox. You rock.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

Next question:

Every day at ~ 3pm my phone gives me the notice that I need to update the Security Policy. When I click on it, it gives the standard "depending on your data plan, you may experience charges, blah blah blah", so I click on it. It thinks for a minute and then comes back with a new notification: "The latest security policy has already been applied."

This has been going on for over a week, since I got the first notification to update it. Any way to shut this off?

(Samsung Galaxy S4)

 

[Supe]

ASUS RT-N66U FTW!

Mine has yet to be reset or drop a connection. Goes from opposite downstairs corner of the house up the stairs, across the bonus room, and behind a false wall with a 95% signal strength. Streams 1080P Netflix video perfectly when ******* Time Warner doesn't throttle back bandwidth during peak hours.

To sum it up - it's ****. IF the 56 is anywhere close to the 66, you'll be in good shape.

 

[knight1fox3]

Next question:

Every day at ~ 3pm my phone gives me the notice that I need to update the Security Policy. When I click on it, it gives the standard "depending on your data plan, you may experience charges, blah blah blah", so I click on it. It thinks for a minute and then comes back with a new notification: "The latest security policy has already been applied."

This has been going on for over a week, since I got the first notification to update it. Any way to shut this off?

(Samsung Galaxy S4)

Have a read through this post and follow the link. This seems to be the fix for now.

 

[knight1fox3]

Looks like they carry the ASUS RT-N56U. Still a good router but at a budget price. Doesn't have the external antennas but still reports a solid reliable connection with a slick interface. Price shows $87 online.

Ok, since no one had it available in store pick up today, I went with this one and ordered it online. Thanks Jedi Master Fox. You rock.

You know what else geeks me out on these ASUS routers? If your primary internet connection goes down, you can connect your smartphone to the router via USB and it will pick up your broadband connection and broadcast it for temporary use. Pretty awesome. Though I'd be sure to watch the data usage when doing that. LOL

You get it all set up yet?

 

[NJmike PE]

Damn. I have not been able to get on here until until just now. That being said, I am back up and running. However, yesterday after work I got a little impulsive. I knew that no one had the Asus router short of ordering online and yet I wanted to resolve the issue by last night. So went to the Best Buy in search of a model in Stock. I was all set to purchase a Netgear either N750 or N900 (I can't remember) when I overheard a kid who works there talking about the AC bands and that they were the newest bands. And then the Belkin AC750 dualband router caught my eye. Granted it wasn't a 900 or 1200 but it essentially fit my needs. So I rolled the dice and bought it. Knowing that I have 15 days to return it if I'm not satisfied. And if I decide it early on, I will just order the Asus model online and just return the Belkin when the other is shipped.

That being said, so far I'm satisfied with the Belkin. It was very easy to install, the range is far better than the Linksys POS that I had, and it hasn't dropped out yet. Like I said, if I find that this one isn't what I first expected, I will order the Asus.

 

[knight1fox3]

The new wireless-AC band is the successor to wireless-N. And basically doubles the throughput. However, I guarantee you don't yet have any devices that can utilize the AC band. Like most, everyone still has N only devices. And N is currently fast enough to do most menial tasks. Belkin isn't terrible, it's still a well known name brand. And most devices run nice straight out of the box, it's more the question on how it will run 6 or 12 months from now. That's the kind of research I like to do before buying something. And why my current Linksys router is going on 5 years strong.

Hopefully you don't have any issues like you were having before. Good luck!

 

[NJmike PE]

The new wireless-AC band is the successor to wireless-N. And basically doubles the throughput. However, I guarantee you don't yet have any devices that can utilize the AC band. Like most, everyone still has N only devices. And N is currently fast enough to do most menial tasks. Belkin isn't terrible, it's still a well known name brand. And most devices run nice straight out of the box, it's more the question on how it will run 6 or 12 months from now. That's the kind of research I like to do before buying something. And why my current Linksys router is going on 5 years strong.

Hopefully you don't have any issues like you were having before. Good luck!

I totally realize that I made an itchy trigger finger move here. In my opinion if the thing lasts at least 12 months, I'll be happy. Either way, when it does crap out I plan to up my price range and get this done once and for all.

 

[frazil]

Fox - I'm supposed to pick out a new computer, but from the specs they all sort of look the same to me. If I send you the list, can you help me choose?

 

[knight1fox3]

Fox - I'm supposed to pick out a new computer, but from the specs they all sort of look the same to me. If I send you the list, can you help me choose?

I'd be happy to Fraz. Send away! Or if you prefer, PM will work too.

 

[Sapper PE LS]

I am in need of a photo backup system. We literally have like 20k pictures stored on one external hard drive, two internal hard drives, Dropbox, and now photobucket. I have resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to have to spend some money but the question is do I invest in increased storage in the cloud (Dropbox / photobucket) which I'm currently only using the free amounts or do I buy a terabyte external hard disk? There are also some videos involved as well.

I worry about buying an external drive and it dying or getting too full, but the cloud isn't cheap and usually involves a yearly cost.

 

[Flyer_PE]

^I keep a backup in the safe deposit box at the bank. I have two external disk drives and swap the latest backup for the one at the bank every so often. To me, cloud storage just means I'm depending on somebody else to maintain the data.

 

[engineergurl]

One negative with an actual hardware type storage device is that it can get stolen... I lost so much when we were robbed back in 2009. Wedding photos, music, business plans, all gone because the drive was sitting out with our other electronics. just a point to make.

 

[Flyer_PE]

^That sucks.

I don't think there is any perfect solution. All you can do is figure out what you're willing to pay vs. what risks you are willing to live with.

 

[NJmike PE]

I've been burning them to CDs or DVDs lately. Been considering flash drives too. I guess it's no different than an external HD

 

[IlPadrino]

I am in need of a photo backup system. We literally have like 20k pictures stored on one external hard drive, two internal hard drives,

20,000 photos isn't a lot... on the order of 100 GB. You can buy inexpensive 1TB+ drives for under $100. Buy two and back up regularly. Or stick with the cloud... Google is $24/year for 100 GB or $120/year for 1 TB.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

I am in need of a photo backup system. We literally have like 20k pictures stored on one external hard drive, two internal hard drives,

20,000 photos isn't a lot... on the order of 100 GB. You can buy inexpensive 1TB+ drives for under $100. Buy two and back up regularly. Or stick with the cloud... Google is $24/year for 100 GB or $120/year for 1 TB.

$120/yr for 1 TB on Google Drive is ridiculous. Since, as you pointed out, traditional hard drives are stupid cheap in the 1 TB range. Plus, I don't think that the cloud storage solution is as secure as they would have you believe. Plus, Google undoubtedly mines any data you put on their drives.

 

[knight1fox3]

I am in need of a photo backup system. We literally have like 20k pictures stored on one external hard drive, two internal hard drives, Dropbox, and now photobucket. I have resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to have to spend some money but the question is do I invest in increased storage in the cloud (Dropbox / photobucket) which I'm currently only using the free amounts or do I buy a terabyte external hard disk? There are also some videos involved as well.

I worry about buying an external drive and it dying or getting too full, but the cloud isn't cheap and usually involves a yearly cost.

LadyFox's brother is a part-time photographer and also runs his own mech. engineering business out of his home. He is very cautious about having back-ups for everything. In addition to running drive RAID set-ups (which I consequently built for him), he also pays for auto online back-ups to the cloud. And I know some of you shutter at the thought of that, but based on what he's told me the data is very safe and secure. Obviously there are always extenuating circumstances (i.e. acts of god) that could transpire, but that goes with any home solution as well. At least the cloud storage servers have multi-level RAID arrays and are protected within a temperature-controlled room which is protected by state-of-the-art Halon systems. I can't say the same for home user setups. LOL

That said, he uses a service called Backblaze ($50 per year for unlimited data isn't bad at all). I believe he has over 600GB worth of data (just multimedia alone). About 2 years ago he had a hard drive failure. As part of the plan, Backblaze transferred all his data to an external drive and shipped it to him next day. Since his data auto-syncs to this Backblaze service, no data was lost and he restored his everything. I've heard CrashPlan is another good online back-up solution. Here's a head-to-head match-up of both services from my PC magazine:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/crashplan_vs_backblaze_2013

I don't think there is any perfect solution. All you can do is figure out what you're willing to pay vs. what risks you are willing to live with.

Correct. Nothing is 100%. It's what you're comfortable with and how much risk you are willing to take. My back-up solution consists of monthly drive images stored on my multi-terabyte server system. I then have that system backed up to a drive that lives in my fire safe. Each computer in the house has a hard drive image that is generally not older than a month. So in the event I need to perform a restoration, at most I only lose a month of data. Which isn't much at all. It's saved my skin a number of times. All my flash drives are backed up there too. I don't really care for RAID set-ups. They work fine but it gets expensive and there are other things that can go wrong. I prefer drive images over data-mirroring.

Hopefully that gives some additional insight.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

^I keep a backup in the safe deposit box at the bank. I have two external disk drives and swap the latest backup for the one at the bank every so often. To me, cloud storage just means I'm depending on somebody else to maintain the data.

This.