Trying to talk myself out of getting a Netgear WNDR3700 ... help?

I'm getting my first wireless router, and was intially looking at the Linksys e2000. It looks to be a good performer at a price I can live with.

But while comparing to the e3000, I learned about NAS, and thought, "yeah, that could be useful". It's quite a bit more expensive, but I do have a USB 2.0 external hard drive that I would (theoretically) get more use out of if it could be store out of the way while connected wirelessly. I would probably be more inclined to back up my hard drive on a regular basis.

I started looking into the e3000, and liked what I saw, but then started reading about problems (the double edged sword of internet forums!) with NAS (possibly not supporting all or some NTFS formated drives), and with it slowing down and requiring daily (?!) reboots to bring it back up to speed.

So, I went on to looking at the Netgear WNDR3700 ... pretty much the same features as the e3000 for less ($10 savings ... woohoo!). But the only review I read that discussed NAS in depth said that it was pretty slow.

Right now, my needs are pretty minimal. One laptop, one desktop (which doesn't even have wireless yet) and a Wii. Occasionally I will have friends over with their laptops, and I plan on getting another laptop within the next 6 months. I wouldn't mind something a little bit future proof, but I'm wondering if the state of NAS right now is a bit of a gimmick.

Either I go big with the Netgear WNDR3700, which hopefully will serve me well until Wireless Q or whatever comes out, or I go one tier down - the Linksys e2000 or whatever the Netgear equivalent is.

What do you think?

 

Here you go
Although WNDR3700 is the best home router available it's not the most reasonable router to buy. It offers great performance for those who need it- judging by your setup- not for you.
Pseudo-NAS is not meant for backup- it may be used to stream movies or something like that but as a backup device it's very slow- most likely 5-7MB/s so backing up any significant amount of data is basically impossible.
You need a decent router both hardware-wise and in terms of firmware but not necessarily the most expensive one.
Linksys E2000 is a good choice. Also Asus RT-n16 is worth considering- it can share USB drive too but default Asus firmware is rubbish. You would have to migrate straight to Tomato or DD-WRT.
Buying WNDR3700 for an average user is like buying Core i7 & ATI HD5970 as an office machine- it's expensive but under normal conditions not really better. To see how good WNDR3700 really is you would have to find a way to somehow utilize its 680MHz CPU and 64MB RAM- otherwise you would be using fraction of its routing power but paying for the whole.

 

That's more or less what I need to hear!

I'm intrigued by the Asus RT-N16, but I'm a bit put off about having to flash the firmware off the bat ... with my luck, I'd brick it.

But if I do go that road, is it reasonably user friendly to set up and use?

Can you think of any other ~$100 routers that do NAS? In case you haven't noticed, I'm still keen on the prospect of actually using this external hard drive on a regular basis, even if it's not an ideal backup scenario. (Please note: I mean "back up" in a somewhat colloquial way ... I mean periodically copying files manually, though I suppose I should get more organized/systematic about the whole thing!)

Oh, and if the Linksys e3000 is the equivalent of the Netgear WNDR3700, what would be the Netgear equivalent of the e2000?

PS - Any thoughts on the Netgear WNR3500L ? It's about the same price as the Asus RT-N16, but more easily available.

 

Ahhh..Don't try to fight it.Go with the best.Get the Netgear WNDR3700.You will be glad you did.

 

Check out Netgear's WNDR3400. It's similar to the 3700 except lacks Gigabit ports (faster wired speeds). For wireless, it seems comparable. It also has a USB port to plug in your external hard drive. I think it's also comparable to the linksys e2000.

 

Go big or go home... it's one of the best routers out there now.

NAS feature from routers is gimmick and have no real use IMO. Get a real NAS box if that's what you need.

 

Actually, the WNDR3700 has one of the faster NAS features in a router: Router Roundup: We Review 7 Top-Tier Routers - Page 3 | Maximum PC

However, consider getting a cheaper router + separate NAS. If you can give up either 5 GHz wireless or gigabit ethernet, then you can get a router for half the price. (5 GHz is mainly useful for wireless video streaming, otherwise 2.4 GHz should be fine.) Gigabit will give you the best NAS speeds, but only if you run a wire AND use a dedicated NAS device.

A single-band gigabit router would run you about $70... and you could get a 1 TB NAS for a bout $100.

EDIT: For light backup needs like copying important files etc. I guess the router-based NAS should do fine... expect around 4 MB per second or so.

 

Well 4MB/s is not really for backup- it's ok for SD video streaming or music but not much else. That said I've actually seen routers reach 10MB/s although that happens only on FAT32 drives- NTFS is a problem for Linux and mind you all those routers are Linux based.

In principle I agree with both of you- WNDR3700 is the best router around for the time being but if meant for backup purposes it's better to buy a good router and a NAS (even a cheap one).

What I disagree with is grave-digging and casual answers to 4 months old posts like it matters to the OP.

 

I just got the Netgear WNR3700 and set it up today. It's a great Wireless router. The range corerage is incredible!!! A guy at Fry's told me this router is the best at the moment...and i have to agree with him!

 

The WNDR3700 is being phased out by the 4000, 3800 and 3700v2. The wndr4000 is netgear's first 3 stream router AFAIK. After these start showing up in retail channels you may be able to find the 3700 for cheap. (I have a 3700 myself and run openwrt on it.)

 

WNR3500L-100NAS is $79 at newegg, has gigabit, great range, and I put dd-wrt on it in a few minutes. Awesome little piece of kit for the money. No clue how fast the NAS is as I have no use for it. Mainly I wanted gig ports to hook up to for fast large file copies between machines.