I bought an EA9500 to replace an aged Apple TimeCapsule in my home network and it looks like I am going to regret it. The hardware of the device is solid, signal strength is good - but not outstanding (it covers one level of our 2 level home) but the software is not something I would be proud of! To start with with UI - it is terribly slow to set up. And it is (I have no softer word for it) flawed (seriously flawed). I bought it for its advertised support for storage (file server and media server) and it goes into a home with several other routers (a modem+router TP-Link AC5400, a D-Link 850 and an aged Apple TimeCapsule. The whole house is one local network and has a single DHCP server activated (on the TP-Link) and the routers form are interconnected through the wired LAN ports (the internet ports are not used). This way the all participate in one Ethernet bridge and having a single DHCP server insures unique local addresses (reserved or not). The boxes have themselves reserved addresses (so that in can access them for setting updating etc.) Avoiding the "internet" ports allowed me to add devices that were dropping packets with local addresses that attempted to pass through the "internet ports" and had no option to suppress that function.
The Linksys box does not work that way. It does not allow the addresses to be handed by a DHCP server from another box except for the "internet port" and even if you disable the local DHCP it keeps handing out 192.168 addresses. The only way to add it to an existing LAN is through bridge mode
but then you cant have STORAGE anymore (and that was the main reason I bought it). Several people in the community have found ways around by setting up several separate subnets with fixed static routes between them - but that is no very practical if you want some service being done from a fixed local address (like my book library on a laptop) and accessible from others. I spent many hours (as I said the setting is done through an excruciatingly slow UI) and I ended up with the bridge configuration with no storage - and that I could have had from elsewhere far cheaper. I wonder how they got so many good review grades. I am also looking to an open source software for this router (although Linksys appears to have made this difficult by adding a signature to the “legal” firmware to load on the machine. Or perhaps they will pay attention to customers and produce a better firmware version. Can somebody on this list suggest an alternate route from the new MUMIMO class (wave2) with similar storage support capabilities?
The Linksys box does not work that way. It does not allow the addresses to be handed by a DHCP server from another box except for the "internet port" and even if you disable the local DHCP it keeps handing out 192.168 addresses. The only way to add it to an existing LAN is through bridge mode
but then you cant have STORAGE anymore (and that was the main reason I bought it). Several people in the community have found ways around by setting up several separate subnets with fixed static routes between them - but that is no very practical if you want some service being done from a fixed local address (like my book library on a laptop) and accessible from others. I spent many hours (as I said the setting is done through an excruciatingly slow UI) and I ended up with the bridge configuration with no storage - and that I could have had from elsewhere far cheaper. I wonder how they got so many good review grades. I am also looking to an open source software for this router (although Linksys appears to have made this difficult by adding a signature to the “legal” firmware to load on the machine. Or perhaps they will pay attention to customers and produce a better firmware version. Can somebody on this list suggest an alternate route from the new MUMIMO class (wave2) with similar storage support capabilities?
