Testing a router’s performance is a pretty straight forward process from my point of view. I will first test the wired network performance with TPC and UDP packets as well as with fixed and variable packet sizes. This part is easy and it is run with direct connections without any interference.
The wireless bands will be tested in the same way as the wired connections, but I’ll add another variable to the test. I will adjust the distance between the router and the receiving WiFi connection from short over medium to long distance throughout my apartment. The positions are the same for every piece of network equipment that I’m testing. Where wired networks are easy to control, wireless networks aren’t.
While it’s easy to test and give you comparable view on the wired connections, it is a different story for the wireless bands. With wireless networks, we need to keep environmental factors in mind. These can’t be avoided. I live in a pretty big apartment complex where many of the residents have multiple WiFi networks. Our ISP boxes have dual-band Wi-Fi and most apartments have an extra router connected which also features two bands of Wi-Fi. All those networks in combination create a tough situation, but that’s not necessarily something bad.
To make matters worse, the building I’m living in is located in the middle of a city that’s basically a huge transport hub. All these industrial complexes and shipping companies also interfere with signals in the area. For example, terrestrial digital TV or Radio isn’t possible at all.
The issues mentioned above will naturally have an impact on the performance, but at the same time, it gives us a great view of how well the device can handle itself in a heavy traffic area. In a way, that’s much better than testing it under optimal conditions – after all, who of us has those?
The basic network tests are performed with PassMark PerformanceTest, but that’s not all. While it offers a great set of tools and options, it’s not enough for us. Starting with this review, I’ll add some normal drive benchmarks that are performed via SMB connections. One thing is sending various packets over the network, it is something else when it comes to file transfers.
Whenever a USB 3.0 or eSATA port with file sharing is present, I’ll also test the possible speed from this. For this, I’ll use an SSD drive in an external docking station and LAN Speed Test.
As mentioned above, the wireless setup can be somewhat tricky. For each review, I use WifiInfoView to find an optimal channel. To me, optimal is considered free with the neighbouring channels also being free. It isn’t always possible, but it’s what you should aim for. There are also mobile apps available with the same feature, should you not have a PC with Wi-Fi.
Our aim is to get the best possible speed rating from the product we’re testing. While the speeds seen here won’t correlate to the same throughput, we need to make sure that we’re running on the right performance band.
We see that we hit the rated 1024QAM performance of 1000Mbps and 2100Mbps.
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