Currently have a 4-5 year old D-Link DIR-655 n-class MIMO unit. It's getting old, suffering from several reboots per day, many are seeing this issue as these routers get a bit older.
After reviewing most units on NewEgg, I've come to the conclusion one must spend decent coin to get a router to handle lots of traffic. Not now, don't have the $$ to spend.
So, I'll roll my own with hardware I have. Currently, have 25Mb/sec cable modem and 2 options for a the attached firewall device/PC:
Hardware:
-Intel Dual-core Atom M/B CPU combo with 2GB RAM, onboard LAN
-USB Stick or hard drive (prefer USB stick if using Linux)
-300mb/s Rosewill WLAN PCI wireless network adapter
or
Windows 7 PC already setup (my AMD-based unit) and just need some robust firewall software to run on it.
My only requirement would that uPNP can work seamlessly like it currently does with the D-Link router. "Stream To Me" is a great app that works thru the firewall via uPNP, allowing one to stream music & vids to Apple iOS devices, even in non-native format, so I can listen to my FLAC files w/o the need convert, copy, etc. VERY nifty.
What linux distro is good/easy/reliable that might run on a USB stick?
or
What Windows software is easy to use and reliable for this task? (do I even want a front-facing Windows system directly attached to the cable modem??)
After reviewing most units on NewEgg, I've come to the conclusion one must spend decent coin to get a router to handle lots of traffic. Not now, don't have the $$ to spend.
So, I'll roll my own with hardware I have. Currently, have 25Mb/sec cable modem and 2 options for a the attached firewall device/PC:
Hardware:
-Intel Dual-core Atom M/B CPU combo with 2GB RAM, onboard LAN
-USB Stick or hard drive (prefer USB stick if using Linux)
-300mb/s Rosewill WLAN PCI wireless network adapter
or
Windows 7 PC already setup (my AMD-based unit) and just need some robust firewall software to run on it.
My only requirement would that uPNP can work seamlessly like it currently does with the D-Link router. "Stream To Me" is a great app that works thru the firewall via uPNP, allowing one to stream music & vids to Apple iOS devices, even in non-native format, so I can listen to my FLAC files w/o the need convert, copy, etc. VERY nifty.
What linux distro is good/easy/reliable that might run on a USB stick?
or
What Windows software is easy to use and reliable for this task? (do I even want a front-facing Windows system directly attached to the cable modem??)