Will this setup work or should I upgrade the router?

[jasonmcroy 315]

Hi guys.

 

I am in the process of changing how my home network is setup. I am happy with everything except one part and wanted some of your experience and ideas.

 

I replaced my Spectrum/Brighthouse wireless router/modem combo with my own Arris Modem (SB6183). I bought two Google wifi devices to handle the wifi portion of my network. This replaces the Spectrum "echo" service that gives me wifi upstairs and downstairs without the device switching to a "different" network when moving around the house.

 

So now I have the modem --> Netgear router --> network (unmanaged) switch (7 devices plugged into that switch and all this so far on the 3rd floor) --> network (unmanaged) switch on the 2nd floor (Living Room).

 

Now, my actual question is this: the Netgear router is an older router I bought several years ago and haven't used it in about 3 years. I don't need the wifi capabilities of it so I turned that function off and am just using it to be the dhcp server basically to my network. It is a gigabit router but the wifi capabilities are only up the N standard, not up to AC. I only mention that to give you an idea of it's age.

 

So, since I am not using the wifi portion of the router, am I losing anything in terms of technology since it is capable of delivering GB speeds? By the way, it is a Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit router.

 

I have tried Googling my question to get what others have done or are using but mostly I receive back information about using the wifi portion or using it as a switch only (with dhcp turned off) which is not my usage scenario.

 

Anyway, is it worth it to upgrade to a newer router or will I get what I need out of this one?

[Guest asrequested]

Well, if most of your traffic is going through the switches, and you have minimal traffic going to the internet, I think you're probably fine. The only reason I can see that you may want to upgrade, is for better security.

[jasonmcroy 315]

Thanks. I hadn't really thought about the security aspect. When I plugged it in it immediately gave me a firmware update. I just checked their website and the update is from Sept of 2017 so it seems they are still supporting it for security fixes. That is what the release notes said the update was for.

[legallink 187]

I don’t know the n600 very well but check smallnetbuilder and see what actual throughput is. Also is most of your traffic internal or external? If internal, the n600 should barely get touched.

 

Security is always an issue. I’m a big fan of third party firmware on routers but I’m also an ASUS fan so have very little experience with net gear.

 

Your biggest dilemna will be if you need any advanced features, vpn, ipv6, etc. but beyond that, you should be fine without upgrading.

 

I would just watch for connection issues. My experience with a router starting to go is packers being dropped.

[jasonmcroy 315]

I don’t know the n600 very well but check smallnetbuilder and see what actual throughput is. Also is most of your traffic internal or external? If internal, the n600 should barely get touched.

 

Security is always an issue. I’m a big fan of third party firmware on routers but I’m also an ASUS fan so have very little experience with net gear.

 

Your biggest dilemna will be if you need any advanced features, vpn, ipv6, etc. but beyond that, you should be fine without upgrading.

 

I would just watch for connection issues. My experience with a router starting to go is packers being dropped.

 

Thanks for pointing me to that website. It seems the router has decent review over that at the time. There are 5 versions of this router, I have v3. There weren't any tests for my version specifically but there was for v2. Their testing seems to indicate that the wired part of the router works well overall. 

 

I am not sure what you mean by internal vs external traffic. Do you mean me watching my shows from my NAS being internal vs watching Netflix streaming being external? Sorry, I am not as savvy on some of these terms. If I understand what you're saying correctly, I'd say were about 1/2 and 1/2 on internal versus external. 

 

I don't really need any advanced features. The most I do with the router is assign static IPs for my NAS and Shield devices on the network. I don't use VPN or anything like that. However, I did notice a lot of settings in the router's gui for stuff like that. 

 

My usage is fairly simple I guess - we record TV from an antenna using HDHomerun devices to the NAS via the getchannels DVR, I rip my Blurays to the NAS with makemkv and watch those via Kodi with the Emby for Kodi addon, stream Netflix, Amazon Prime, occasionally rent a video via Vudu or Amazon Prime. 

 

Are there tools or apps to test how my internal network is performing?