Very Powerful Reviews ASUS RT-N66W Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router White Version

Researched VERY carefully before choosing the ASUS RT-N66W Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router White Version as the foundation for home network upgrade. The primary goals for the upgrade were increased device to device speed and to enable a more robust file sharing and backup scheme.

Amazxx is offering ASUS RT-N66W Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router for a good price.

Other than price, there is no longer any reason not to buy this ASUS RT-N66W Gigabit Router product. It is the best wireless access point on the market, save for the new ASUS RT-AC66U, which is just an updated version of this product. The ASUS RT-N66W reviewed the best, and has delivered on all these counts so far in my setup.

• 3 x Detachable antenna for 2.4GHz/5GHz with peak gain 3dBi/ 5dBi
• IPv6 support; VPN Server Support
• 802.11n: up to 450Mbps ; 802.11a/g: up to 54Mbps; 802.11b: up to 11Mbps
• Supports Ethernet and 802.3 with max. bit rate 10/100/1000 Mbps
• 4 x LAN ports for 10/100/1000 BaseT
• 2 x USB2.0 support got Printer sharing or HDD sharing

Aesthetically, this router just looks sweet. Nice textured black surface. It can be positioned flat, but also gomes with a stand if you prefer a vertical orientation. A row of blue indicator LEDs emit a nice glow, but are not annoyingly bright. It's been running smooth for a month now. The specs on this ASUS RT-N66W Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router are awesome. Summarizing Pros and Cons to date

ASUS RT-N66W Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router White Version Pros

• Outstanding speed when combined with similarly spec'd adapter
• Great wifi performance relative to competition (signal strength and throughput) on BOTH bands (on par with my Amped Wireless R10000 and actually beat my Linksys E4200 v1).
• Ability to bump up Transmit power makes for much better link speeds across typical house size.
• Very powerful and flexible set of features/options, with an easy way to configure them through the Dashboard UI.
• Fast CPU and lots of RAM to handle multiple connections and heavy loads
• Can stream HD from attached storage
• Frequent Firmware updates with lots of user input to the process
• Supports attached storage greater than 3TB, with GUID vs. MBR partitions.
• Active user community online

ASUS RT-N66W Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router White Version Cons

• WPS is enabled by default. Make sure to turn it off to protect yourself from the WPS exploit (at this time - as of Jan 19 2012 - this issue affects any router with WPS enabled)
• Slowish write speeds through network to attached storage. Wish for this to be de-bottlenecked somehow, either in firmware, QoS settings, or through faster connection from router to storage device.

ASUS RT-N66W Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router White Version Features I like but have not explored

• VPN, FTP, secure Internet access
• Apps for router
• Multimedia server/sharing
• UPnP integration, e.g., with DirectTV or AV Receiver

Use 2.4 GHz as my "do everything" band, so keep the settings focused on flexibility instead of absolute max speed.

• 2.4 GHz settings
• Mode - Auto
• Bandwidth - 20 MHz
• Control Channel - Auto

5GHz I optimize for speed, but, since I have good luck with the auto intelligence built in to the router for use here in my neighborhood, this really amounts to just one setting difference:

• Mode - Auto
• Bandwidth - 40 MHz
• Control Channel - Auto

Channel Bandwidth of 20MHz on 2.4 prevents the router from hogging bandwidth from neighbors, while 40MHz on 5 GHz doubles the max link speed. Figure this is OK as 1) not so many 5GHz signals in our neighborhood and 2) 5GHz does not reach as far anyway.

Practically, this means most of the household links at 2.4 GHz for simplicity and convenience, but I link my laptop and AV desktop at 5 GHz for the added throughput.

More than 1,676 people has been buy ASUS RT-N66W Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router White Version and 86% are satisfied (as 12/14/2013). 

Great performance, solid build quality, loaded with latest features and IPv6 support. It is not cheap but then again neither is the competition. The exception is the Linksys E4200 v1 'manufacturer refurbished' model with a manufacturer warranty, free shipping and a return period.