It’s been 15 months since I set up a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 with open source Linux-based DD-WRT firmware as my main broadband router (see “DD-WRT on Buffalo WHR-HP-G54”, 2008-09-06). I’m happy to report that this US$70 router it is the most robust router I have ever used. Its performance has been solid as a rock.

I’ve owned other routers that would occasionally need resetting because of connection problems, or that would spontaneously reboot themselves, but not the WHR-HP-G54. It never misses a beat.

Currently, its uptime count is at 157 days, that is since a family member accidentally pulled its power cord out of the wall socket five months ago. This box will stay up and running forever, no matter how hard you push it. It works better than any other router I’ve owned at any price.

In five months my router has handled a total of 1080 GB (1.08 TB) of data that either came from or went out to the cable modem, or over 6 GB per day (I process a lot of spam data and have 4 hard disks of 1 TB or larger).

On top of all the regular functions of a home / small office router it handles IPv6 tunneling over IPv4 and offers many features. The user interface is straightforward, yet very powerful.

A friend of mine who used to have chronic problems with two different routers, which he uses with about 10 different computers in his home, on my recommendation bought the same model several months ago. He thanked me again today because he hasn’t had any problems since 🙂