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[mvjunkie]

Always been a fan of D-Link..

Its either gonna be the 857 or N66U ( Asus ).

Which one will be better for torrents? Most mid-grade routers fall over, stop responding, need a reboot, when you have multiple torrents going on because of all the simultaneous connections.
Which one can handle these connections better?

I usually have about 15 torrents going on at once, and my old trusty DGL-4100 could handle this, and still does. Tried other routers, and they choke and die when I load my torrents up.

[Beeder]

N66U has a lot of kinks to work out firmware-wise, though the hardware has great potential. N66U has gotten a lot of positive reviews based on its potential, but if you look around the forums, there are a lot of stability issues.  It seems that Asus is willing to push out firmware to fix bugs without doing regression testing, leading to old bugs that come back.

For me, 857 has been very stable, and I think it's the better choice.  That this is a DLink forum is purely incidental.

[mvjunkie]

N66U has a lot of kinks to work out firmware-wise, though the hardware has great potential. N66U has gotten a lot of positive reviews based on its potential, but if you look around the forums, there are a lot of stability issues.  It seems that Asus is willing to push out firmware to fix bugs without doing regression testing, leading to old bugs that come back.

For me, 857 has been very stable, and I think it's the better choice.  That this is a DLink forum is purely incidental.

Thanks for the reply, does the 857 have the CPU and RAM to handle a lot of connections via torrents, and not choke it? I have a 655 right now, and it can't do that many until it has its heat attack.

[Doctor Doom]

The 857 can handle 30000+ sessions no problem. I know Asus on some models toot 300000 sessions. If you had a DGL-4100 that did the job, either the N66U or 857 will definitely do the job. A lot of older routers had 2000-4000 session limits and that would typically cause the router to misbehave when using torrents.

Hardware wise they are both good. Stability wise I cannot comment on the Asus but their firmwares have always been flakey and DD-WRT is usually the solution. I've been running the 857 for a few weeks and it's solid.

[Hard Harry]

From using both I can say they are pretty even. The RT-N66U has a little bit longer range, but the DIR-857 had better firmware out of the gate. It was patched though, and my build was nothing but heaven.  N66U has VPN hosting (though work is it doesn't work yet) but DIR-857 has a cool iOS/Android app for its cloud support. N66U has two USB and a internal SD (for firmware additions) but the DIR-857 has USB 3.0 and a external SD card. N66U has better CPU/RAM specs on paper, but some prefer the processing method of the 857. I don't want to say which one I prefer, because personal preference doesn't matter, its what is best for you. If you have a big media library, including multiple external storage, want to stream off site, including phones and tablets, and don't need any of the fancy stuff like ssh access, then go with the Dlink. If need full bandwidth monitoring, better VPN support, and stuff your IT will love, go with the N66U. But here is a good walk through to give you some unbias info.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/31687-asus-rt-n66u-dark-knight-dual-band-wireless-n900-gigabit-router-reviewed

[FurryNutz]

Harry, does the N66U have IPv6 Firewall options separate like the Amplify routers or is that all inclusive in some of the settings? Just curious.

[Lexist2112]

Coming from a Linksys E4200, the Dlink 857 works quite well. Have had it for 3weeks and have put it thru it's paces. Out of the box the 1.00 F/W saw my Seagate 3TB HDD connected via the 3.0 USB and the Shareport app (The app just updated today) on all my devices was able to access the drive FAST and snappy...impressive.

The dual band works great with all my wireless devices ie..iphone, iPad 3 , 5GHZ lappie and 4 Dlink wireless cams, and XBOX!!!!!

DLNA service works GREAT!!! The PS3 streams all my video content, gonna have to rip some HD content soon  

The wireless coverage is by far better than the E4200 both on the 2.4 & 5GHZ bandwidth, solid signal and less instability.

After the release of 1.01 F/W I waited a day and took the plunge and upgraded the F/W and the upgrade process went smoothly and all my configurations were there on reboot.

All in all a great router should have waited 1 year , had I known Dlink was gonna release this router I would have. Would have been worth the wait.

[mvjunkie]

The 857 can handle 30000+ sessions no problem. I know Asus on some models toot 300000 sessions. If you had a DGL-4100 that did the job, either the N66U or 857 will definitely do the job. A lot of older routers had 2000-4000 session limits and that would typically cause the router to misbehave when using torrents.

Just out of curiosity, why could my old trusty 4100 handle massive connections, yet my 655 falls over with alot of connections?

I've had 20+ torrents going on at once, full seeds on all of them and the 4100 handled them ... 655 would handle it for a few hours before it needed a reboot.....

[FurryNutz]

You maybe exceeding the limites of the 655 maybe. Having too many torrents going maybe causing the problem. You need adjust the torrents, try cutting your torrents down to half and test?

Just out of curiosity, why could my old trusty 4100 handle massive connections, yet my 655 falls over with alot of connections?

I've had 20+ torrents going on at once, full seeds on all of them and the 4100 handled them ... 655 would handle it for a few hours before it needed a reboot.....

[mbg]

I have a D-Link DIR-825 rev A and recently replaced it with an N66U.

N66U range was worse. The far reaches of my house held stable connections with the DIR-825 but drop quite frequently with the N66U (whether mounted horizontally or on the stand it comes with).

Torrents weren't an issue with either router. Neither fell over, but concurrent connections to non-torrent sources slowed to a crawl on other devices with both routers, I guess because of the many connections competing for prioritization. I found QoS easier to configure for torrent traffic on the DIR-825.

Logging was better on the N66U, and my DIR-825 is Rev A which has decent logging.

Stability of N66U was fine as long as devices were in range. It doesn't formally require reboots for as many config changes as the DIR-825, but sometimes it didn't seen stable after a config change until I rebooted, even if not required.

I went back to the DIR-825 after trying the N66U for about a month. I think the overall quality of the D-Link experience was better. Asus had a nicer interface but a number of things seemed experimental or unreliable.

I didn't try any 3rd party firmware.

[Syaoran]

Thanks for the reply, does the 857 have the CPU and RAM to handle a lot of connections via torrents, and not choke it? I have a 655 right now, and it can't do that many until it has its heat attack.

Actually, I have this issue with the 857.  I tend to seed a lot of torrents and it can completely lock up my router due to heat.  Just seeding a couple of handfuls of torrents push the temperature of this router into the upper 40's C.  If you don't mind slapping a laptop cooler under it, it's a little more reliable.  Personally, I am tempted to give my router to my grandparents and buy something else.  Whehter torrents or multiple steaming and online gaming at the same time.  This router can get very hot and to the point where lock ups and disconnections happen. 

[Hard Harry]

Take note, the RT-N66U was specifically designed to handle torrents. Specs lists it can handle 300k+ As for cooling, just take a look:

DIR-857 thermal sink


**Correction** Seems Dlink put their heat sink on the bottom


RT-N66U thermal sink


As you can see, the RT-N66U has a solid aluminum thermal sink across the entire top of PCB while the DIR-857 only has electrical shielding. has a smaller heatsink along the bottom.

[Syaoran]

That's something D-Link should have done with the DIR-857. 

[FurryNutz]

Interesting so seems that users would need to lower the torrent seeding possibly if they were to use the 857? I've noticed that various users have complained about torrents either making routers warmer than normal or the router not being able to handle all the torrents that users are doing. I have mentioned that users do need to lower the torrents they are doing or lower the band width they are using in the torrent program. I still feel that users are probably letting then torrent program be the hog in there down loads and not placing any limits on what they are downloading... Seems like the 857 isn't meant for major Torrent downloads.

My 2 cents.

[Syaoran]

That's about my conclusion also, Furry!  I was sent a beta firmware earlier in the week but I don't have enough time to push the router to test it until Wednesday.  Once I put it through a good stress test, I will report back to D-Link.