Right. So with my ADSL installation pending (waiting for a tech to arrive, activate a phone line, put down router, essentially), I need to set up a network in my house. I'm renting the house, and my move in a year, so wiring is out of the question. It's basically wireless all the way. I have the following to be connected: 13" MacBook Pro (802.11n capable) Lenovo Laptop (802.11g) My PC (no wireless, but card will be bought as well) XBox 360 Given the n-capability of the MBP, I'd obviously like to have that capability in my house. However, given the XBox's wired nature, whichever router I chose must be able to take wires as well. I was originally looking at the Apple Airport Express for it's relatively acceptable price (me being a bit of a mac-whore doesn't help, of course) and the USB port. However, the USB port is only for printers, which is a bit pointless. Also, only an uplink port to the ADSL router, and no other Network ports. Plus, I won't be using AirTunes anytime in the next year or so at least. That brought my eye to the Airport Extreme. However, availability in this country of that is NULL, meaning I'd have to wait for 3 weeks. Also a no-go for me. Then my gaze fell upon the Apple TimeCapsule. Essentially an Airport Extreme with a built-in 1TB HDD. However, priced at 2.5* the price of the express, it seems to be a bit outside of my budget right now. And thus I turn to the B-T Community for help. I need to find a wireless router that's really good. Specs that are needed: - Wireless G and N - USB Slot for HDD - Apple and Windows compatible 100% (i.e. the HDD sharing as well) - Gigabit LAN ports, at least 3 - Decent Security Nice to have: - Dual band, always on (2.4GHz AND 5GHz at the same time, unless someone can tell me why that's pointless) - More LAN ports /USB ports, whatnot - the ability to share the internet with guests, without sharing the rest of the network Please take note that while overseas prices (i.e. your prices) are somewhat related, they are not entirely the same here. Also, not all things are available here. On hand, i pretty much have D-Link, maybe some Linksys and POSSIBLY some Belkin devices. Any thoughts? Help? I know there's a lot of Apple-sluttery in this, but I am asking for help, because I don't know Wireless as well as I would like to... and if there's an affordable non-apple solution that meets the needs, I'm game to listen
Right - so I had a look around for a bit: No dual Band Linksys in the country, not much in Neighbouring SA either. South African Price on the WRT610 (whatever it's called) is just about 15% under the local price of a TimeCapsule. Ouch. Same goes for the dual band D-Link Extreme 855. The 655 doesn't seem to be available in ZA. Had a look at amazon UK, and while they do sell most of these things for prices rather under our local ones (about 50% of the local price, to be exact), there's shipping restrictions on electronics that prevent me from ordering one there (and courier shipping it). Same with Amazon US
can't really help with the router, although any decent make one should do the job fine. The network protocols are standard, so you don't need anything special to enable file sharing between windows and mac. One thing to watch out for: The wireless can only go as fast as the slowest device, so if you connect a g device to the network, it will drop down to 54mbps for all devices. Some routers can host multiple wireless networks, so it would be possible to have one for you're computers and one for guests, keeping the networks seperate.
Yeah... hence me looking at dual band simultaneous routers. But from what I see they're more expensive than stem cell research around here, and make the TimeCapsule 1TB seem comparable in price. The closest I can find in an affordable bracket (around the same price as an Airport Express here) is the Linksys WRT320N
