WRT54G running DD-WRT vs Cisco RV016 (consumer vs commercial)

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jmroberts70

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I've been running a Linksys WRT54G in my home for years now. I've probably replaced it 3 times. I've gone through several iterations of firmware mods finally resting on DD-WRT to live inside. I do the occasional torrent (but not as often as I used to). However, I'm starting to get into supporting large, commercial networks in my side business and I've been experiencing the occasional failure of WRT54G's in the many businesses I have placed them within.

In short: from time to time the old WRT54G fails me and I'm thinking it's time to go to a new "commercial-grade" platform for the routers I install in businesses and my home. I've got my eye on the Cisco RV016 and it's family of platforms (I'd really like something that I can rack-mount). Can anyone tell me if I'm going to lose a lot of features I get with DD-WRT if I go in this direction? Do you think I'm making the right choice?
 
Looks like the RV016 has a rackmount capability:
rv016-01.jpg


I really like some of it's features -like the ability to add multiple Internet sources. I would be able to feed an office with a dedicated connection from a Telco and back it up with something from Timewarner and the customer would never know the difference if one of them went down. All I would need next is a solid WDS platform to setup. Any suggestions there?
 
The RV016 is a piece of junk as is the entire RV series. Sticking DD-WRT on it would be an improvement, but I am not certain how well it is supported.

With few exceptions I prefer Tomato firmware to DD-WRT.


If you really want to jump up in the reliability world take a look at either the Zyxel USGs model 50 or higher or a Ubiquiti Edgemax router.

Since you like DD-WRT the edgemax might be a better fit, but most of the more adv. functions are currently only available when using the CLI.
 
RV0 series seems mediocre at best...

i would look into the zyxel USGs, Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite's and the Mikrotik RB series routers...
 
^ What he said.

Anything Linksys or Cisco SMB line is junk. The only exception to that might be their SG switches but even then I'd rather go HP in that price range.
 
/usr/home said:
^ What he said.

Anything Linksys or Cisco SMB line is junk. The only exception to that might be their SG switches but even then I'd rather go HP in that price range.
Click to expand...

Have you used the newer ISA series? Those were tolerable and unlike the RV series most all the features written in the datasheet actually work.

I wouldn't go as far to call everything Linksys junk. Consumer grade...yes definitely.

If you're going to pay good money for SOHO or SMB level equipment it ought to offer you something reasonable for your money. In that regards the Linksys RV series was a near complete letdown.
 
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/usr/home said:
^ What he said.

Anything Linksys or Cisco SMB line is junk. The only exception to that might be their SG switches but even then I'd rather go HP in that price range.
Click to expand...


This x 2. Running my USG 50 for 120 days no issues. Once everything is set up these things are just solid.

Cisco can only do medium to enterprise level products really well. Anything in the consumer market is practically trash.
 
Wow!! Thanks you guys. Probably just saved me a lot of headache. Actually makes sense when I think about it. Just because Cisco buys Linksys doesn't necessarily mean Linksys=Cisco in quality now. In fact, it could easily mean the opposite. Just putting the Cisco name on a Linksys product really doesn't change a thing. I was hoping that some of the more enterprise-class quality would trickle down to this product line but knowing the tendency of most large companies I really can't expect that.

So I'm really interested in the Mikrotik products! Looks like a very innovative and robust system. It seems to be tough enough to handle heavy loads and an enterprise level of traffic management, has rackmount solutions, and doesn't cost that much. Are there any caveats I should be aware of if I go in this direction?
 
Caveats with Mikrotiks is they have subpar documentation and their speed claims are some what questionable.
 
For the last few years, I have been installing WRT54G routers in pretty much any business site that has needed a network put in place. I wind up having to replace them about every couple of years as they all take turns dying. I have one I run at home running DD-WRT and I'm now about to replace it for the 2nd time as the wireless is starting to fail on me again. I'm getting tired of replacing these boxes frankly. I just have a feeling that it's time to move up to a more commercial-class of router hardware.

Hell, the Microtik platform (I've been looking into it all morning) not only looks more robust but isn't that much more money!
 
I have had good luck with the rv series when all they are doing is routing.
vpn and anything else is sub-par on them.
But handing a ton of connections, in front of a web server, or voip where someone is dumb enough to run hosted voip they perform better than many routers costing 3x as much.
 
stormy1 said:
I have had good luck with the rv series when all they are doing is routing.
vpn and anything else is sub-par on them.
But handing a ton of connections, in front of a web server, or voip where someone is dumb enough to run hosted voip they perform better than many routers costing 3x as much.
Click to expand...

In this day and age where we have the $100 Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite,this device is simply outclassed.
 
I love mikrotik products, but I suggest you buy (one or more) cold spare and get used to their interface / CLI.
 
Metraon said:
I love mikrotik products, but I suggest you buy (one or more) cold spare and get used to their interface / CLI.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I actually think I'm going to get one at home first and get used to running / managing it. I'm also going to setup a WDS system at home to know it before installing it at a business. It's cheap enough to not be too big of an investment.
 
jmroberts70 said:
Yeah, I actually think I'm going to get one at home first and get used to running / managing it. I'm also going to setup a WDS system at home to know it before installing it at a business. It's cheap enough to not be too big of an investment.
Click to expand...

The cold spare is for backup purposes (if you plan on installing on customer sites) I ordered a lot of Mikrotik units in the last year or so and sometimes you get a few DOA units and/or just working a few days.

The DOA / defect rate is not that high, but I think its worth having some on the side just in case.
 
I dropped the WRT54*-series years ago, the TP-Link WDR3600 seems to be very solid performers using OpenWRT trunk, running these for the last ~1.5 years now.
//Danne
 
To echo everyone else, skip the RV series. Originally when they debuted almost 10 years ago, they were decent, but there are MUCH better choices on the market at this point. As others have mentioned, the Zyxel USG series is pretty bulletproof once they're setup and have some potential for UTM features as well. I'm not sure I'd even contemplate using DDWRT or OpenWRT in a production environment. Obviously it performs better than stock firmware on a home-grade router, but it's still a home-grade router...
 
jmroberts70 said:
For the last few years, I have been installing WRT54G routers in pretty much any business site that has needed a network put in place. I wind up having to replace them about every couple of years as they all take turns dying. I have one I run at home running DD-WRT and I'm now about to replace it for the 2nd time as the wireless is starting to fail on me again. I'm getting tired of replacing these boxes frankly.
Click to expand...

I've never had a WRT54G/GS die even running for years. Have you considered using a different 3rd party firmware like OpenWRT? If the router is dying then perhaps DD-WRT is doing something silly like constantly writing logs to flash or if the radio is dying maybe it's burnt out by extreme transmit power setting like 250mw max vs 68mw on OpenWRT.
 
mi7chy said:
I've never had a WRT54G/GS die even running for years. Have you considered using a different 3rd party firmware like OpenWRT? If the router is dying then perhaps DD-WRT is doing something silly like constantly writing logs to flash or if the radio is dying maybe it's burnt out by extreme transmit power setting like 250mw max vs 68mw on OpenWRT.
Click to expand...

I'm actually only running DD-WRT at home. All the ones I've installed at job sites were left stock.
 
mi7chy said:
And, speaking of Cisco their low end enterprise equipment is garbage too like the 2900 series switches.
Click to expand...

Care to elaborate?

We've run C2960's at branch sites for years with no trouble, so when it came time to refresh our corporate access layer, the stackable 2960X and XR line made a lot of sense over moving straight from 3750's to 3850's. We've made a significant investment in the 2960 lineup now, so I'm curious what bad experience you've had with them?

Thanks

Just to contribute a bit to the topic, at home I've run DD-WRT for many years as a gateway, and just as an access point, on aging hardware it's been very stable. My gateway device now is a Ubiquiti ERL, which I love; I'm very impressed with Vyatta/EdgeOS and the device has been 100% rock solid with everything I've thrown at it. I've also researched the RV series for a small business client of mine and came to the same conclusion, people just don't seem to like them, so I installed Zyxel USG series appliances instead. The USG interface is a bit unique, took some getting used to, but overall the VPN setup was simple and they've been reliable.
 
I've posted this many times so here's the cliffnotes version.

  • Company of 30 employees
  • Needed a new router with VPN
  • Selected RV082 R2, because no one ever gets fired for buying Cisco.....right?
  • Fought with it for 2 weeks
  • While talking to Cisco support. Cisco's official response "no response on why features printed on the data sheet did not work" and that "only the easy connect client works currently".
  • We tried easy connect.
  • Discovered it doesn't work well at many hotels depending on what the hotel filters. (About 40% failure rate in the field)
  • Cisco's recommendation.....would you like to buy an ASA?
  • Cisco offered to purchase the device back for what we paid.
  • Purchased a Zyxel USG 100.
  • Updated and setup in 3 hours.
  • Most configurations for VPN worked, with little/no tweaking.
  • Called Zyxel Support, remaining issue solved in under 10 minutes.
  • Rock solid for the past 4 year and still in service today.
 
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