At my house we're running a really outdated old router since our other router, which is probably equally as outdated but better router, died about a year ago. The one we have currently has really poor load balancing and tends to just give out when one person in the house is using a VPN connection.
So to future proof my home networking without having to buy an over priced router with low specs, I thought to myself if need to spend $300-400 on a decent high capacity router, might as well just build a router that can do a lot more with the same amount of money. I was also looking into NAS and other server stuff for a centralized mass file storage server, to store things like music and movies, but holy crap they were expensive.
I am thinking of building something like this
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite ($50) or any low cost case with lots of internal HDD slots, maybe a Fractual R5
CPU: i3-6100 ($120) or any similar spec i3
MOBO: ASUS B150-PRO ($76) or any other basic ATX MOBO
RAM: any 4 or 8 GB of RAM kit ($40)
SSD: any 128 GB SSD boot drive ($60)
PSU: Corsair CX-600, I already have it laying around.
WIFI Card: TP-LINK Archer T9E AC1900 ($75)
NIC: Intel RJ-45 4 Port ($40)
Mass HDD Storage: any low priced 1TB+ HDD I can find and will add later.
Or maybe a AMD equivalent build centering around a FX-4100 or FX-6300.
I will probably have the computer run Windows 7 or 10, and use a VM to install something like Pfsense or x86 OpenWRT or x86 DD-WRT.
As for how to use the PC as a data file server for streaming music and movies, I am probably just going to make use Window's the built in homegroup network sharing. Unless someone has a better solution.
Also is that WIFI card I chose capable of broadcasting or does it just receive only?
At my house we have about 4 desktops, 2 Smart TVs, 4 Laptops, 2 Tablets, and 4-5 phones. They don't run all time but that is what the worst case scenario would look like in my house. Do you think my build would be able to adequately handle that type of load? Does anyone see anything wrong with my plans? Also please give me any suggestions on which router firmware I should use? Which one has the easiest out of the box QoS system for gaming without too much configuration.
I know Pfsense has a lot of advance features, and allows you much more control than things like DD-WRT and OpenWRT, but it doesn't seem like it has easy to use QoS features without having to get to technical.
So to future proof my home networking without having to buy an over priced router with low specs, I thought to myself if need to spend $300-400 on a decent high capacity router, might as well just build a router that can do a lot more with the same amount of money. I was also looking into NAS and other server stuff for a centralized mass file storage server, to store things like music and movies, but holy crap they were expensive.
I am thinking of building something like this
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite ($50) or any low cost case with lots of internal HDD slots, maybe a Fractual R5
CPU: i3-6100 ($120) or any similar spec i3
MOBO: ASUS B150-PRO ($76) or any other basic ATX MOBO
RAM: any 4 or 8 GB of RAM kit ($40)
SSD: any 128 GB SSD boot drive ($60)
PSU: Corsair CX-600, I already have it laying around.
WIFI Card: TP-LINK Archer T9E AC1900 ($75)
NIC: Intel RJ-45 4 Port ($40)
Mass HDD Storage: any low priced 1TB+ HDD I can find and will add later.
Or maybe a AMD equivalent build centering around a FX-4100 or FX-6300.
I will probably have the computer run Windows 7 or 10, and use a VM to install something like Pfsense or x86 OpenWRT or x86 DD-WRT.
As for how to use the PC as a data file server for streaming music and movies, I am probably just going to make use Window's the built in homegroup network sharing. Unless someone has a better solution.
Also is that WIFI card I chose capable of broadcasting or does it just receive only?
At my house we have about 4 desktops, 2 Smart TVs, 4 Laptops, 2 Tablets, and 4-5 phones. They don't run all time but that is what the worst case scenario would look like in my house. Do you think my build would be able to adequately handle that type of load? Does anyone see anything wrong with my plans? Also please give me any suggestions on which router firmware I should use? Which one has the easiest out of the box QoS system for gaming without too much configuration.
I know Pfsense has a lot of advance features, and allows you much more control than things like DD-WRT and OpenWRT, but it doesn't seem like it has easy to use QoS features without having to get to technical.
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