The Asus RT-N16 is a single-band router with three removable (and therefore upgradeable) antennas, but the third antenna didn’t help the router rise above third place overall in terms of TCP throughput. It did, however, do a solid job of penetrating our media room.
The RT-N16 is equipped with two USB ports, so it can support both a portable USB hard drive and a printer. USB storage devices are shared using SMB/CIFS, so the shares appear when you use Windows to browse your network. This is a far superior alternative to forcing you to install a client to access the shares, as some of the other routers do.
The Asus RT-N16 is a solid performer with dual USB ports, strong firmware, and support from the DD-WRT community.
Asus has developed a very user-friendly GUI for the RT-N16’s firmware, and the EZQoS utility makes it easy to assign bandwidth priority to various applications (with settings for VoIP, games, video streaming, and the built-in FTP server). There’s an integrated BitTorrent client, too. If the stock firmware doesn’t float your boat, you can replace it with a version of the popular open-source alternative DD-WRT.
The RT-N16’s stock firmware includes a UPnP media server, but it’s not DLNA-compliant. This means the router is not a great choice if you’re looking to stream media from an attached drive to an Xbox 360 or a PS3 gaming console.
Decent range and throughput; dual USB ports; support from DD-WRT community; BitTorrent client.
Single-band only; no guest network; no DLNA-compliant media server.
| 2.4Ghz | |
|---|---|
| Bedroom, 10ft (Mb/s) | 74.3 |
| Kitchen, 20ft (Mb/s) | 54.1 |
| Enclosed Patio, 38ft (Mb/s) | 35.5 |
| Bedroom 2, 60ft (Mb/s) | 25.5 |
| Media Room, 35ft (Mb/s) | 6.3 |
| Outdoors, 85ft (Mb/s) | 1.9 |
| Asus RT-N16 | |
|---|---|
| Radio Frequencies | Single-band: 2.4GHz only |
| Guest Network | No |
| DLNA-Compliant Media Server | No |
| USB Ports | Two (for printer and/or storage) |
| NTFS Drive Support | Yes |
| WDS Bridge/Repeater Support | No |
| Large File Write (min:sec) | 8:24 |
| Small Files Write (min:sec) | 2:48 |
| Large File Read (min:sec) | 7:53 |
| Small Files Read (min:sec) | 1:59 |
Hustller
February 28, 2011 at 1:02am
Thanks for this brief review.
I would like to state, that Media Server actually works very well on PS3.
It is also accessible from my Nokia E55 Home Media application.
I have to admit, that Media Server is not that functional as TVersity, but it is quite reliable and easy to use.
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