Wireless router with USB - does it support CIFS / SMB

Hi all,

I am considering getting a new wireless N router with USB storage and need some advise on which routers can do the following:

1). Support CIFS / SMB
This allows my Mac and Windows laptops to map the USB drive and shows up as additional drive in both laptops. I don't want to go through web-interface stuff.

2). Permission
With the CIFS / SMB support (see #1), I want to able to restrict permission at the folder level.

FYI, my current setup is quite simple: TWO USB drives connected to an old Windows XP laptop. Individual folders in the drives are configured as a share with restriction. I.e. Folder A - allow everyone to access, Folder B - only Administrator have access, etc. For access from the INTERNET, I use PogoPlug software.

OR....

Would you guys recommend that I go to a full blown NAS like the Synology DS211j?

 

That depends on your usage patterns. If it's not gonna be used heavily a router with USB port will do but if it's going to be used extensively a real NAS it would be better.

I have to admit I've been contemplating the same issue for a while now and I can't really justify the price of a NAS for my needs.
If you are going to go for a NAS after all I would advise you to at least give a chance to those two cheap but decent NASes: D-Link DNS-320 and D-Link DNS-325. These are not the most advanced NASes but both are pretty good for home use and are a lot cheaper compared to Synology.

As for the router- what you've described should be available. I'm not sure about official firmware but I know that i.e. Tomato firmware supports CIFS.
I would recommend a Netgear WNR3500L (some $70). That's a good mid range router and can run Tomato.

 

The settings I have (laptop with USB drives attached) so far didn't exhibit any slow down, but I am not sure how it will go with the router with USB port, since I have no experiences with their performance. I.e. is the D-Link Wireless Router 680Mhz CPU sufficient?

With the current setup, there are 3 people, including myself, that uses the router (Internet) and mapped network drive as follow:
- Netflix streaming
- Some large download but NOT all the time, such as iTunes Podcast download (which can be HUGE)
- Music and video files from the mapped network drive, either copy or streaming from the laptops

In term of the wireless router, do you know which one would do the CIFS and Samba? I just read up about the Linksys E4200 from their site and it seems I have to RECREATE the folder from the web interface, one-by-one for sharing purposes.

 

I assume you're talking about Atheros AR7161 680MHz CPU- that's the only one that comes to mind, so you're probably talking about D-Link DIR-825.
I would advise against D-Link routers, you'd be better off with Netgear WNDR3700 which uses the same chip.

Routers in general don't achieve good transfer speeds from USB HDDs/pendrives- mainly because all of them are based on Linux and you would probably use NTFS on your HDDs.
Besides 480MHz (WNR3500L) or even 680MHz (WNDR3700) for both routing and pseudo_NAS is not exactly on pair with D-Link DNS-320 (800MHz CPU, 128MB RAM) or D-Link DNS-325 (1200MHz CPU, 256MB RAM).

As for CIFS and Samba- I don't think it can be done by factory firmware. You'll have to use 3rd party firmware like Tomato or OpenWRT.
I seem to remember that Tomato does CIFS but please take a minute to read through their forum. You should probably choose a firmware first and then buy a good router that is supported by that firmware.
Linksys E4200 will be supported soon but as of now it's not full support- it's mainly experimental.

Still you have to realize that router working as a NAS has a mind-boggling performance of some 7-10MB/s when reading/writing from HDD while D-Link DNS-320 doesn't go below 24MB/s and in certain operations it exceeds 40MB/s so it's not exactly comparable.

 

Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't know USB HDD connected to router will exhibit such low performance.

I set my mind on getting a NAS now and was looking at the Synology DS211J, because even though it cost more, it has far more features, such as Torrent download, IP camera, and adding another HDD via USB port which is useful since I can connect my portable HDD, which will sync with the NAS using MS SyncToy. But Amazon just increased the price from $299 to $330 (!!).