SMC Barricade 7404BRA VS Alcatel SpeedTouch 510V4

***Which one to get for a semi-professionnal use?***

After having spent the whole week end and also this morning reading on various boards, and many other locations, here are my questions and comments about the SMC Barricade 7404BRA and the Alcatel Speedtouch 510V4 4 Ports :

- Here are my network specs and the things I'm doing on the net (except forums, and building personnal websites) :

* 3 PCs including a laptop

* SMC1211TX 10/100 NICs on my 2 desktops and Intel 10/100 on the laptop

* Hub 3Com OfficeConnect 8 Ports

* 1 of my 2 desktops runs 2000 Server SP3 ; and the other runs 98SE/2000Pro SP3/XP Pro SP1a (I'm not using that often 98SE)

* I have 2 spare SMC1211TX NICs (I used to have 4 comps and my main comp is an NForce 2 rig)



* On the net I : downloads; ICQ ; MSN Messenger ; AIM ; Yahoo! Messenger ; FTP in passive mode (upload on personnal websites hosters like Mutimania (Lycos), and some other hosters)
I use video, vocal, and send/receive features on thos instant messengers.


- My questions and comments :

* My ISP has just launched ADSL (d/l limit : 750Mb and kinda expensive pricing) and is only selling Alcatel Speedtouch 330 USB modems (it consumes too much ressources and it makes the comp where it is hooked crashing) ; My question on this point is : If I get another brand than Alcatel will this make that I won't be able to connect to the net? I've read many posts speaking of ISPs platforms.


* As I've already said the Alcatel Speedtouch 530 is U PNP compliant, and the SMC Barricade 7404BRA not yet as far as I know ; I've read a post telling that U PNP works only with U PNP compliant softwares, so is it as bad if a router doesn't comply with this feature ? We can live without, no?


* Concerning NAT : as I've already said on the Alcatel some NAT rules be entered using the Web interface and some others using Telnet (like port ranges mapping on the NAT for example, it must be the case for some other rules) ; on the SMC it looks more userfriendly, nevertheless, is the 20 port mapping on the SMC pcan be a problem ? Is there any way to map port ranges on the SMC (as far as I know it's not possible, reading users reports, I find it odd) ?


* Talking of user friendly, here I come to the Firewall part : on the Alcatel rules customisation is done using Telnet, and logs are not what it is the best on that product ; on the SMC it is done using the Web interface, which is more user friendly and more practical, the only thing to know now is if the logs are better on that SMC ?


* The SMC have the SMNP feature, usefull for packets tracing, but it slows down the network. Is SMNP a such usefull feature?


* I think of hooking off my comps from my hub and connect them directely to the router, in order to benefit from the better management done by the switch feature of the router.

If I'm correct I need to have 2 NICs on the comp where the router will be hooked (one for the Lan and another for the Wan) ?

Is that better to hook the router on the comp which is running 2000 Server SP3 on my main PC ? If I hook it on that comp will the bandwidth be the same on each of my comps?


* Can anyone tell if there are any problems that I should be aware on the SMC Barricade 7404BRA