Router

[Hajime]

Dear AT,

I've been out of the network game for years. What I'm looking for is simple however. I want the best router with the following criteria:

Sub-$200
Dual USB ports (Pref 3.0) with Samba-or-similar sharing - This is a big one. If I can find a router that can do this at 100 MB/sec (~800mbps, my current wired network achieves this with a Linux box as a router, but I want to repurpose it) or even 75 MB/sec (~600mbps), it would be my dream router.
Faster is better with wireless.
Flashable - DD-WRT compatibility or similar.
Gigabit ports. I'd vastly prefer 8, but I can make do with 4.

The Asus Dark Knight seems to be everything I ever wanted in a router - sadly, it has USB 2.0 ports, but I have my doubts it can exceed the transfer rates of USB 2.0 over the network due to the relatively slow processor. I was wondering if there was anything better on the market?

 

[kbp]

Asus RT-N66U - But USB 2 ^
I use it to backup two computers (laptop/desktop) one being wireless to a drive caddy and have no complaints.

 

[JackMDS]

The Asus Dark Knight seems to be everything I ever wanted in a router - sadly, it has USB 2.0 ports, but I have my doubts it can exceed the transfer rates of USB 2.0 over the network due to the relatively slow processor. I was wondering if there was anything better on the market?

In general the Asus RT-N66U is probably the best.

FWIW, the Asus RT-N65U has USB3.

 

[tyler811]

I have the Asus RT-N16 with the two usb ports though it is usb 2.0 and I love it. I have my movies on two 1 TB HDD and stream them through the network flawlessly.

I am looking at the 66 but cannot justify bying a new one since the one I have is working fine (knocking on woood)

 

[NXIL]

NETGEAR Centria WNDR4720-100NAS All-in-One Back-up, Media Server, N900 Dual Band Gigabit Wi-Fi Router; 2TB Version (WNDR4720)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...tem=33-122-488

NETGEAR Centria WNDR4700-100NAS All-in-One Back-up, Media Server, N900 Dual Band Gigabit Wi-Fi Router; Diskless Version (WNDR4700)

$40 off w/ hard drive combo purchase, limited offer

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...tem=33-122-487

 

[VirtualLarry]

NETGEAR Centria WNDR4720-100NAS All-in-One Back-up, Media Server, N900 Dual Band Gigabit Wi-Fi Router; 2TB Version (WNDR4720)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...tem=33-122-488

NETGEAR Centria WNDR4700-100NAS All-in-One Back-up, Media Server, N900 Dual Band Gigabit Wi-Fi Router; Diskless Version (WNDR4700)

$40 off w/ hard drive combo purchase, limited offer

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...tem=33-122-487

Thanks for sharing. Interesting products, certainly.

I was a little disappointed to read one of the newegg reviews, that claimed that they had a very small list of "qualified" external HDs that would work with these devices. User claim he had 10 different ones, and none of them worked. I supposed that could have been down to user error (not reformatting with Router/NAS filesystem), but you would kind of think you could just plug any external portable HDD into it and make it work.