Replace a Western Digital My Net N750

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Hi everybody,

I (happily) use since years a Western Digital My Net N750 as my main router since CC-15 and recently upgraded in 19.07.03 without too much trouble.

I'm very happy with this router because:

  • great form factor for a router only (no bad looking antennas, easy to install where I need to have it)
  • very good looking (I know, I know, good looking should not be so important ... but ...)
  • 4+1 Gb/s ports
  • easy to flash with OpenWrt
  • no CPU problem with my slow 15/1Mb/s DSL
  • a physical button (WPS) that can be easily used to start/stop radio in OpenWrt (important feature for me)
  • it can hold 2 WAN with mwan3 easily (sometime 2 ADSL line, sometime 1 ADSL + 1 LTE with a huawei LTE router in front, always wanted to try with a LTE USB stick direct on the router but I didn't take time to test that)

Until recently I only used it as a (wired) router with no radio at all, as I have 2 Tplink (C5 V1 / C7 V2) acting as AP-only elsewhere in the house providing a correct coverage ... reverted back them a long time ago with stock firmware.

I need to find another router to replace it:

  • I need to have a spare router ... when dooing maintenance/update on the main router you plug the spare in place when working on the main ... then doing the same on the spare for the next time.
  • I really want to keep OpenWRT on it
  • I hope to upgrade my internet line soon (fiber is under deployment in my town, with 400Mb/s up/down or 1000/600 depending on how many money I want to put on that monthly)
  • I still need it to have Wifi on it, at least on the 2.4 band -> I'm starting to work more often at home, so I created a "guest" wifi network on the WD router, totally isolated from my LAN, to connect my pro laptop. I really don't want this computer to see anything of my network ! (so it is important for me to have a easy to reach button to stop/start the wifi on the main router). I can't do that with my Archer routers as they are only on the LAN side.
  • I (really) don't want to replace this king of hardware any year (3 to 5 year is acceptable)

So I have indentify some routers (all ipq40xx equiped ?) to do the job after a week of searching, but I can't spend enough time to dig, dig, dig enough this subject to be sure I do a correct choice.

Can anybody help me in that quest ?
What I have found in a correct price range (understand well under 200EUR/USD - for information I live in France):

  • AVM FRITZ!Box 4040 (70~80€)
  • GL.iNet GL-B1300 (80~90€)
  • ZyXEL NBG6617 ... unable to find one, more expensive and external antennas that will make this router hard to install where I have the WD

I'm a bit concerned about VLAN ipq40xx 's behaviour (for MWAN3 if I want a 4G/LTE backup WAN)

Do I missed anything ?
Are there anothers good/better routers for my need ?
Do you have any better CPU/router/idea for my need ?
Can I do that with OpenWrt or do I need to use any router with it stock firmware

Many thanks in advance,
Sorry for my poor English, that is not my native language !

Herve

2

https://openwrt.org/toh/asus/rt-ac58u
I am not sure on the strength of the CPU on them.

3

Thanks Tapper,

I can read on this page "There were multiple reports of instability under load, likely due to 128 MB RAM being insufficient for two “ath10k” radios. "

Regards

4

The RT-AC58U should be avoided at all costs, you really want >=256 MB RAM for a device with two QCA 802.11ac cards (the driver is memory hungry).

Routing at 1 GBit/s linespeed is non-trivial, I'm not sure (or even convinced) that ipq40xx can deal with that (ipq806x cannot).

5

Thank you slh.

I already know that RT-AC58U is not a good choice (and perhaps maybe not in my particular case, because I will only use 2.4Ghz on it, so only one loaded "ath10k" radio)
I spent a week "doing my homework" on OpenWrt web resources on recent hardware and I still see the same answers.

"you can't with that" ... "impossible with xyz" ... "not sure with ABC" etc ...
Maybe it's time for someone better informed that I never will to tell me/us which one can do it rather than which won't? ... or at least wich SoC/CPU familly can

I spent a lot of time to (I hope!) write a clear and complete post to explain my actual situation and my needs in my NON native language, and it is difficult to do.

I work in IT (virtualization specialist, and yes I host my own servers at home) so I have a good background, but MIPS / ARM / SoC / OpenWRT are not in my comfort zone and will certainly never be ... to much work to become aware of all ... but not enough time for digging enough.

So, please, someone, is it possible to know if I can find a correct hardware in 2020 with:

  • a correct footprint (not a netgear nighthawk, or something with 8+ antenna ... like TP-Link Archer AX11000 !!). My WD Mynet N750 is not small but it is easy to find a place for it
  • no external antenna if possible
  • that can deal with 400Mbit down/up
  • at least 3 Gbit ports
  • an easy to access button (Wifi/Wds ... I dont care) I will use to start/stop the 2.4Ghz Wifi easily when strarting/stoping my work day at home without the need to access LuCi (more range for my pro laptop at the other end of my house and less noise for the 5Ghz band of my 2 others APs)

Optional:

  • if possible not too hard to flash it (but no problem if I need to use an UART adaptor for that, just easier is better !)
  • an USB port (for a potential future LTE backup)
  • enough VLAN support to make MWAN3 working
  • not to expensive (max 150eur/usd)

Please feel free to tell me "No, that did not exist for running with OpenWrt")

Regards
Herve

6

The problem is that these requirements aren't particularly easy...

1 GBit/s routing at line speed can be handled by mvebu (e.g. Linksys WRT1200AC/ WRT1900AC/ WRT1900ACS/ WRT3200ACM/ WRT32x), but there wireless interoperability is [CENSORED], with zero hope for future fixes (no WPA3, problems with IPv6, really big issues with IoT clients/ ESP8266/ ESP32).

IPQ806x is a great SOC, but without NSS/ NPU hardware offloading (don't hold your breath, I wouldn't expect that to appear) it maxes out at routing around 500-600 MBit/s (less with SQM), great WLAN support as well.

IPQ807x would be a solution here, it has the performance to route 1 GBit/s (without NSS/ NPU offloading) and good WLAN, but it's not quite supported by OpenWrt yet (expect at least 6-12 months or more).

MT7621 can do plain routing at 1 GBit/s, thanks to its hardware flow-offloading support, but beyond that its SOC is very much at the slow end (not good for SQM or VPN), WLAN is a bit mediocre.

The more you're aiming at the higher end (ftth), the more I'd look at x86_64 (entry level pentium gold/ i3 or ryzen 3) combined with a well (OpenWrt-) supported router as mere AP (and maybe managed switch; ipq40xx/ ipq806x). But at least for your current WAN connection, this would be total overkill - and way too expensive to be reasonable. It really depends on your prospects in regards to ftth deployment and when you'd want to sign up, if it's more than ~a year away I'd go with something cheap (look at the used market!) now and defer the highend stuff until the first ipq807x devices are properly supported (pending feedback from early OpenWrt adopters of these devices).

--
Disclaimer: I'm pretty happy with ipq8065 for a 400/200 MBit/s ftth contract, but I wouldn't buy that with ftth in mind - I was just pleasantly surprised that I didn't have to go shopping with my existing nbg6817; no SQM needed.

2 Likes
7

Thanks a lot slh for this great reply,

Coming from a 15/1 DSL line and planning to upgrade soon to at least 400/400 I think I will make a try with an affordable (~80EUR) ipq40xx device to play with it and keep my venerable WD Mynet N750 (Atheros AR9344) up to date as an instantly available backup (moslty to not shut the net at home when doing some maintenance on the main router).
And later this ipq40xx device will certainly become the backup and another will take its place with better perfomance ... probably with a small x86_64 board as you suggest well.

It is not for me so important if I loose a bit of bandwith - because of the router CPU - especially if i can already do x20 in download and x300 in upload - this should be night and day for us at home !!!!!
I hope to be able to have MWAN3 working on it (as I don't understand well actually the VLAN limitation of many ipq40xx boards) to have a pre-configured/ready to use LTE backup (with an USB stick or with
usb tethering .... but it is still on my optional functionnalities list.

I should be very happy to play with a NBG6817 (Armor Z2), it looks like a great device ... I have the money for that, but I just dont accept to put as much money on this kind of hardware (and it is too big to locate it when I want)

If I understand well the only other way to have a full Gb support is to accept to use (any) router with its original (buggy) firmware and waiting (hoping) for hw nat support to become (magically) available for Linux/OpenWRT.

I'm not a big fan of Lynksys products, even with stock firmware, too expensive for what they are, too lagy, too complex, too unstable, too power hungry if I remember well ... now far away from the Cisco history (I had play with a ea6400 [dd-wrt because no support for Open-WRT] with bad results).

I was not very happy with my 2 Archer (C5 V1, C7 V2) from the beginning because I tested them early on OpenWrt in CC15 with strange behaviour/instability and reverted back to original firmware as AP only long time ago (unfortunately not enough time to play with them at each new OpenWRT release) and will be happy to replace them ... one day, perhaps soon with TP-link Archer C2300 that looks good for the price .. but no OpenWrt support because of Broadcom chip (or any other good AP only device).
They work ... but I don't know why I don't like them a lot as AP only

But I liked a lot my WD because it was easy to deal with it and it simply looks nice/works fine since the beginning. This thing is very stable, stress-less device ... and I prefer something that works just fine (even with not the better speeds) that something with the best speeds available on the market at a time but needing a lot of time to make it working 'almost' fine.

Again, thanks a lot for your great reply, I understand these thing well better now.

Best regards
Herve

8

Have found a Fritz!Box 4040 for 46eur, will try that.
not really pretty but will certainly do the job ;o)

Herve

9

That should be a pretty nice device, more than adequate for your current WAN speed and at least capable of ~200 MBit/s (probably more).

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