AirPort Extreme vs. BitTorrent?

[philips]

Hi All!

I want (again) to upgrade my old and dusty WRT54G v2 to something newer and faster. The device is pretty much unkillable (5 years non-stop!) so it seems that I can't wait for it fail and have to buy replacement prematurely as it doesn't even support 802.11a - only b and g.

That's why I have some questions to AitPort Extreme owner.

1. Does it survive well BitTorrent traffic? It seems to be historically the most demanding and trying load for (wireless) routers. Did anybody use the router with e.g. Azureus/Vuze and high uplink speeds? Crashes? Hangs? Resets?

2. I can't find a printer compatibility list for the router. Is there such thing? On apple.com/airportextreme it simply mentions "USB 2.0 to connect printer" - but no compatibility list is available. I have Canon iP4300.

The device looks solid and I know that Apple has improved the design over the years, yet it would be nice to hear something positive from owners before forking off the premium it costs.

 

[kaybeee]

Hi All!

I want (again) to upgrade my old and dusty WRT54G v2 to something newer and faster. The device is pretty much unkillable (5 years non-stop!) so it seems that I can't wait for it fail and have to buy replacement prematurely as it doesn't even support 802.11a - only b and g.

That's why I have some questions to AitPort Extreme owner.

1. Does it survive well BitTorrent traffic? It seems to be historically the most demanding and trying load for (wireless) routers. Did anybody use the router with e.g. Azureus/Vuze and high uplink speeds? Crashes? Hangs? Resets?

2. I can't find a printer compatibility list for the router. Is there such thing? On apple.com/airportextreme it simply mentions "USB 2.0 to connect printer" - but no compatibility list is available. I have Canon iP4300.

The device looks solid and I know that Apple has improved the design over the years, yet it would be nice to hear something positive from owners before forking off the premium it costs.

I also had a wrt54g running dd-wrt (custom firmware). It died on me a couple of months ago and i was in the market for a N router. The current versions of the linksys 300n did not support DD-WRT, so i went with the Airport extreme

1) I use uTorrent, and i am getting the same speeds as before with my other router. I had no crashes, hangs or resets since i bought this mid December.

You do have to set the ports like any other router, but that isn't hard.

2) I do not have a printer hooked up via USB, it is hooked up via Ethernet cable because my printer is network computable. I think it should work fine with basically any newer usb 2.0 printer, but do not take my word for it.

I suggest you get a external HDD and plug it into the router so you can wirelessly use timemachine to backup the files on your mac.

 

[Scottsdale]

The new AirPort Extreme is even nicer, supporting dual networks.

I have the older N model. It is very fast and very reliable. However, I cannot answer the Bit Torrent question.

However, as a "printer" function, ANY printer that uses USB and will work with OS X will work with the AirPort Extreme. The other nice part is it is absolutely simple to setup. If printer is already installed on the computer, when selecting print or go to printers and change port to AirPort Extreme or wireless instead of USB. It is absolutely SIMPLE.

The amazing part of ALL Apple devices is they make them simple to use. And another nice thing is you can control the AirPort Extreme wirelessly. A lot of other brands require you to login via an IP address via a wired connection and etc... the AirPort Extreme does away with that mess. It's a simple solution for everyone and pretty much any traffic is doable as you can set the ports and etc just as the other poster stated.

Congratulations on your decision to go AirPort Extreme.

 

[MattZani]

Transmission Tells me i have Downloaded 77.6Gb since June '08, and i Have Had Upto 5 People Online Gaming on it (Far more intensive than Torrenting) and nothing, mine got a little hot, but i think thats because its a Time Capsule.

 

[philips]

Thanks folks for sharing your experience!

I glad to hear that there is a well designed (in many senses of the word) wireless router out there.

... and i Have Had Upto 5 People Online Gaming on it (Far more intensive than Torrenting) ...

Not really. Gaming is low-latency low-bandwidth constant load. BitTorrent is a true torrent of non-stop connection establishments. Traffic - not a problem. Internal wiring of many devices exceeded gigabit long time ago - packets routed within nano/microseconds. New connections - are the problem, since they require intervention of main CPU/firmware for the firewall/forwarding/etc checks... OK. That's enough of network devices lessons for now

P.S. Other guy was recommending me a D-Link DGL-4x00 as an option which also supports highly intensive gaming/bittorrent traffic. Yet, as I still have two half-dead D-Link routers in my network equipment stash, I'm kind of avoiding the brand for now.

 

[MattZani]

I Would of Said Online Gaming on 5 PS3's independently connecting to 5 Different Servers, is more Intensive. But then it depends on your Torrenting.

 

[philips]

2) I do not have a printer hooked up via USB, it is hooked up via Ethernet cable because my printer is network computable. I think it should work fine with basically any newer usb 2.0 printer, but do not take my word for it.

As I'm printing rarely, even if my printer wouldn't be supported, I think I can live with that.

I suggest you get a external HDD and plug it into the router so you can wirelessly use timemachine to backup the files on your mac.

To date, I have very terrible experience with external hard drives. They are way too noisy for me even to consider them in my living room. I had at least two external hard drives everybody was claiming "quiet" yet turned out to be loud as hell especially if you put them on table (which amplifies the sound caused by vibrations). Even on floor under table, both of them were too loud as floor also vibrates.

Or on another side. Does AirPort Extreme properly put external hard drives to sleep? Because that would solve problem too: I can tolerate noise for short time I'm making a backup.

 

[philips]

I Would of Said Online Gaming on 5 PS3's independently connecting to 5 Different Servers, is more Intensive. But then it depends on your Torrenting.

I'm not a pirate too much despite my jacket and bandana.

Mostly anime. Anime means that I'm seeding quite a lot. At the moment I have about 180 episodes (~6 month) in seeding pipeline with about 20 having ratio below 0.5. Connection count rarely drops below ~40, though only max 5 connections are transferring at the same time.