Mikrotik RB941-2nD-TC ( hAp Lite )

I was about to get new router, rather commercial one, first I was about to get some beast with Giga ports and ac wifi standard, this was  all intended to replace my linksys wrt54gl.

One crucial thing to get a decent replacement  is  stability of the device, man can not imaging going to  restart the router (or send your non IT guest's) twice a day - and yes my wrt54gl was restarted twice for the past 3 years!!!  Given this ,  and reading reviews, there were only options starting at 100 +USD...
So I re-think the options , what I really need and why I need it..

Why to get this router: 

• I need stable device:
• Restarting of the router everytime because of stability is nothing you want to do, device should serve you, not the other way
• Good wifi range:
• Some of the cheap commercial solutions will blow you up with 3x 10-20dbi antenas and you wonder why the signal strength drops just moving to another room within your house
• You are fine with 100Mbps ports and stable 'n' wifi standard and also 2.4Ghz
• this might be a little pain, but again, it is better to have stable 'n' rather than dropping 'a' standard
• If you know what is DHCP,MTU,port forward, GateWay,DNS, interface...
• No, that is fine, RouterOS has "QuickSetup" option, it is not for person who just click "next" -> "next"-> connected!, but if you use google a little you will be able to set it up.

Unpacking:
Super small, durable plastic, actually really nice paper box!
See some pics comparing to iPhone 5.

Great, so you have it unpacked, you feel like plugging it immediately and guess what, you can do PoE as well as USB micro cable hah!
Login to router and do the initial setup:

Mikrotik RB941-2nD-TC comes with the internal 1.5dBi antennas, Linksys 5dBi external antennas, 

Comparison: 2 meters away

Linksys WRT54Gl : SNR 58

Mikrotik RB941-2nD-TC ( hAp Lite )
SNR: 64

Given that above, Mikrotik has cleaner signal. TxRate is ofcourse higher because Linksys is G only router. (54 mbit)

Wifi speed test, file transfers with Jperf on FTP port 21/ wifi 20Mhz:

Mikrotik hAp Lite: 

[  4]  0.0- 1.0 sec  7.88 MBytes  66.1 Mbits/sec

[  4]  1.0- 2.0 sec  8.00 MBytes  67.1 Mbits/sec

[  4]  2.0- 3.0 sec  7.75 MBytes  65.0 Mbits/sec

[  4]  3.0- 4.0 sec  7.50 MBytes  62.9 Mbits/sec

[  4]  4.0- 5.0 sec  7.38 MBytes  61.9 Mbits/sec

[  4]  5.0- 6.0 sec  7.75 MBytes  65.0 Mbits/sec

[  4]  6.0- 7.0 sec  7.75 MBytes  65.0 Mbits/sec

[  4]  7.0- 8.0 sec  7.62 MBytes  64.0 Mbits/sec

[  4]  8.0- 9.0 sec  7.88 MBytes  66.1 Mbits/sec

[  4]  9.0-10.0 sec  7.75 MBytes  65.0 Mbits/sec

[  4]  0.0-10.0 sec  77.5 MBytes  64.9 Mbits/sec

Linksys WRT54Gl:

[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth

[  4]  0.0- 1.0 sec  2.62 MBytes  22.0 Mbits/sec

[  4]  1.0- 2.0 sec  2.25 MBytes  18.9 Mbits/sec

[  4]  2.0- 3.0 sec  2.25 MBytes  18.9 Mbits/sec

[  4]  3.0- 4.0 sec  2.12 MBytes  17.8 Mbits/sec

[  4]  4.0- 5.0 sec  2.12 MBytes  17.8 Mbits/sec

[  4]  5.0- 6.0 sec  1.62 MBytes  13.6 Mbits/sec

[  4]  6.0- 7.0 sec  2.50 MBytes  21.0 Mbits/sec

[  4]  7.0- 8.0 sec  2.38 MBytes  19.9 Mbits/sec

[  4]  8.0- 9.0 sec  2.12 MBytes  17.8 Mbits/sec

[  4]  9.0-10.0 sec  2.38 MBytes  19.9 Mbits/sec

[  4]  0.0-10.0 sec  22.5 MBytes  18.9 Mbits/sec

SMB MAC to NAS: 

Considering Mikrotik router as replacement for WRT54Gl:

-Price 20USD

-Router OS

-PoE, USB power

-Stability, reliability, configurability

-Size of the router!

-Wifi Stable, 1,5 dBI antenna with high power range - signal much stronger in bedroom 12 meters away through closed doors and 2 walls than WRT54GL