With the gradual popularity of broadband networks, broadband routers have received more and more wide applications, derived and developed broadband routing markets, and various manufacturers have launched a variety of router products that have different functions, and make most people want to buy routers but Consumers who lack basic technologies have no choice, so we are here to analyze and interpret the main performance indicators of the purchase broadband router, and provide a help for the majority of consumers to choose broadband routers.
1 processor frequency
analysis:
First, the processor of the router is the same as the computer motherboard, switches, etc., is the most core device of the router. The processor's quality directly affects the performance of the router, the processor, the ability to process, but the performance is good, but in turn, the processor is good, because the processor is not the only factor of determining the router.
Second, there are often some routers in the market claim, such as "processor main frequency 100M, strong performance". In fact, in addition to the frequency of the processor, you must also understand its bus width, Cache capacity and structure, internal bus structure, is a single CPU or multi-CPU distributed processing, calculation mode, etc., which will greatly affect processor performance. Little is not more than the main frequency, the key to see what the CPU is used by the kernel, how the internal structure is.
User Advanced:
In general, the processor is a lower frequency, 100m ~ 200m medium, and 200m or more belongs to a higher frequency. In addition, what is the core of the processor, is 80186, ARM7, ARM9, MIPS or Intel Xscale? How big is the Cache capacity? Is it single CPU or multi-CPU distributed processing? 80186, ARM7 kernel processor is a typical configuration of the first generation broadband router, low performance, mainstream manufacturers are not used. ARM9, MIPS kernel processor is current mainstream. The Intel Xscale architecture is an advanced network processor for high-end products. Cache capacity 8K or below is less, 16K is common, 32K or more belongs to big. General processors are single CPUs, using multi-CPU distributed processing, high-grade processors, high performance. It is also possible to study ARM9 is a common 920T / 922T / 940T or enhanced 926E / 946E / 966E, MIPS is 2K, 3K or 4K, 5K, different models performance and structure will have a big difference. Interested in searching online, then look at the chip manufacturer's website.
2 memory capacity
analysis:
Processor memory is used to store all data in the calculation process, so the capacity size of the memory has a certain impact on the processing capability of the processor. But there is a problem: the size of the memory is on the one hand, it is more important to use it scientifically. Horizontal software design can be well planned and used, low levels of self without design capabilities, direct Copy processor chip manufacturers offering unopened reference software, memory cannot get effective planning and use. This is like laying a room, the savvy Shanghai woman is good at "doing the housing", everything is reasonable, every inches are reasonably utilized, and the living room of more than ten square meters can put all furniture and electrical appliances. But change to a lazy bachelor, the same size room and the same furniture and electrical appliances, not only it is likely can't be caught, but it is not a few days in the room, and there is no place. Therefore, depending on the size of the use of memory, it is unreasonable to evaluate the performance of the router performance.
User Advanced:
In general, 1M ~ 4M Bytes belongs to a smaller, 8M Bytes belongs to medium, 16M Bytes or above belongs to a larger. In addition, special attention is that many dealers and even manufacturers say how much M is mentioned when they mentioned memory, at this time, they must ask about Byte or BIT. Memory can be done by BYTE (bytes), or you can do units in Bit (bit), the difference between the two, the capacity is 8 times (1 byte = 8 bit)! Generally, with capital B, BYTE, lowercase B represents Bit, don't have a heart, you will do your hands here, some don't maribe, and there is also a B mark B hidden sea. It can be found on the website of the chip manufacturer. Some criminals even use a polishing chip to fake on the chip screen, so it is important to choose the product of honest and trustworthy manufacturers. 3 Flash capacity
analysis:
Flash is used to store operating systems and applications, depending on how the operating system, application write efficiency, and sprays of the user interface. If you select a high-efficiency real-time operating system (such as VxWorks, Ecos, Nucleus, etc.), the designer understands deep, cropping, and has high writing efficiency, you can use small capacity Flash. If you choose a low-efficiency operating system (such as Linux, etc.), the designer does not understand the operating system, the write efficiency is low, or the fundamental photo chip manufacturer has not optimized reference software, it can only use large capacity Flash. From this perspective, it is, but the smaller the smaller software, the more trustworthy. Of course, the product is more functional, and the user interface has a little more than the FLASH that is relatively used.
User Advanced:
Ordinary users don't have to know how big it is Flash. As long as you see the function is not satisfied, you will look at the user interface and look at it.
4 THROUGHPUT
analysis:
THROUGHPUT indicates the amount of data that can be processed per second. In the case of the image, the work of the router is very similar to the post office parcel business. The post office is sent to the post office, sender, recipient and other information to the post office. The post office is packaged, and the formatted package Single, check the destination after checking, and the parcel is the opposite process. The router is basically the same, but what is sent and received is data. Throughput is equivalent to the package processing power in the post office unit, it is an intuitive reflection of the performance of the router. But at the same time, the hidden names behind this data are also the most.
First, the router's Throughput must be explained, it must be the LAN-TO-WAN THROUGHPUT, data flow, or flow into the local area network that requires router processing to represent the performance of router. Instead of lan-to-lan, this represents the performance of the interior of the router, and there is no meaning. This is like the parcel processing power in the post office, must refer to the amount of parcels that ship and transport the post office, rather than moving from a room in a room to another.
Second, the router THROUGHPUT should be the test data obtained in the case where the NAT (Network Address Translation) is turned on and the firewall is closed. This is because NAT is the most basic and core function of broadband routers. It is not a broadband router without turning on NAT, and the quality of software design directly affects NAT efficiency and router performance, so NAT opens THROUGHPUT is meaningful. of. And the firewall should count the advanced features included with broadband routers. Some product firewall rules are very complicated. It can filter a lot, and some product rules are less simple. There are many rules, complex, CPUs are used to filter data, less rules, simple, filter data is short, this is quite big for THROUGHPUT test data. For fairness, when testing router THROUGHPUT, especially when comparing in different product performance, it is reasonable. The evaluation of the firewall is generally compared to the functionality rather than performance comparisons. Common THROUGHPUT test methods have two, one is SmartBits test, one is Chariot test. SmartBits Test is the use of the world's most authoritative network equipment tester SmartBits2000 or 6000, with professional test software SmartApplication, with continuous UDP packets to measure the number of packets that can be processed by different sizes, the number of packets per second. When the router is handling the packet, the main time is spent on the processing of the header, the tail, the number of packets that can be processed by the router per second, which will not be too large. This is like the post office to handle the package, the main time is to spend the handlers, recipients, and item information and inspection, and the parcel will not be too large. If the 128byte package can handle 10,000 per second, the 64 BYTE package can be processed by 20,000 per second, but a little bit more than 10,000, such as 10,100. For example, some saying that the router is 8,000 per second when the router is dealing with the maximum 1518byte package (theoretically handled the 1518byte package of 100M line speed is 8127 per second), and the THROUGHPUT is 100m * 8000/8127 = 98.44m. Therefore, it is said that the router THROUGHPUT is as high as 98.44m; in fact, this router is 11,000 per second when the minimum 64byte package is handled (theoretical limit is 148,880 per second), and only 100m * 11000/148810 = 7.39m, The two differ than 13 times! Similarly, the "THROUGHPUT up to 97m" said that the router is likely to be 97m of the 1518byte package, and the 64byte package is likely to be only 7.39m! More importantly, the processing capabilities of small bags forward can really reflect the THROUGHPUT capabilities of the router! At present, most of the mainstream routers in the market have a large package such as 512, 1024, and 1518byte. THROUGHPUT can be approximately linear (of course, there are also some miscellaneous router big bag forwarding ability), but test 256, 128 and 64byte. At the time, performance difference is immediately reflected. And the actual application of most routers is very critical. For example, there is often a game in Internet cafes. Each time a game instruction is operated, each of the triggers, the forwarding of the forward is a small bag. If the power of the router is not strong enough, it is very It's hard to pay a large number of small bags forwarding, and the game is very unhappy. So the NAT opens 64 Byte packets of the Lan-to-WAN THROUGHPUT truly evaluated.
In addition, with the hardware used in the current broadband router, it is basically not enough to reach the 64byte parcel THROUGHPUT line speed, so some products claim to reach the line speed, which may use the so-called NAT hardware acceleration technology, throughput is very good. However, the cost is that all data is not passed through the CPU, and the data is not possible, the firewall does not work, and the router does not have any management functions. This is like the post office does not check what is in the postal bag. Is there a flammable and explosive item, the address is not Mars, the recipient is not Ben Laden, and the list is issued. Chariot test uses two servers, installs Netiq's software Chariot, one connected router WAN port, one connection LAN port, passing the script file with a predetermined length and format from one server from one server to another The time of the server to calculate the throughput of the router. This is big, one is related to server performance, unhearten manufacturers use high-performance servers when testing their own products, and tested the products of others with low performance servers when they test others, deliberately degrading data. The second is to establish a connection number. The more connections are established. The higher the performance requirements of the router software, the software is poor, and the THROUGHPUT will decline in the line, and even the software is not available; The router is very smooth, and even the increase in the number of connections is slightly rough. The third is that Chariot test is not like the SmartBits test is the test UDP "package", but the data "stream", its data is packaged into a large TCP package and the server operating system, but it is generally packaged to 1518byte big bag, so it test data will It is better to confuse people than the 64 BYTE parcel with smartbits. Fourth, the Chriot test throughput results are valid data load, excluding TCP protocol loss, frame intervals, response, and Chriot itself system loss. Typical loss is about 6m according to the theory, that is, even if you pick up a speed forward The switch is not a router, and the measured Throughput can only be around 94m. This is the theoretical limit, so if a router product CHRIOT test Throughput is 97m, 98m, then there is no doubt that the letter to open the river deceive consumers.
User Advanced:
Throughput is a lan-to-wan THROUGHPUT, which generally should be the test data obtained in the case of NAT open and firewall closes, and there are two ways of SmartBits test and Chariot test, and the results can be very different. According to the currently hardware capabilities, the smartbits big bag test data is easy to reach the line speed, just like testing college students' intelligence, the topic is 1 1 =? Everyone can answer it, it is more than high. Therefore, to be an objective assessment, the topic should be difficult, compare the 64byte parcel test data, and the highest judge. Of course, if there is a NAT hardware acceleration to turn it off again. As for the Chariot test, it should be equally fair to the same test environment and method, and in the actual network application, it is almost impossible to be single-connected, so the chariot test is best to carry out multiple connections. Generally, it can be seen that 100 pairs can be seen. In short, a separate Throughput data is meaningless, it is necessary to explain that this data is useful for use, and the comparison of mutual performance must be fair and meaningful under the same test environment and method. The best way is to look at the smartbits test NAT to open 64 Byte parcel Lan-to-Wan Throughput. 5 tape
analysis:
The number of leaders of the broadband router is directly affected by the busy network of the actual use environment, and the number of different network environmental devices differs greatly. For example, in the Internet cafe, everyone chats online, games, almost all data passes the WAN port, the router load is heavy. And the business network often has only a small number of people in the network, and most of the data is in the enterprise network, and the router load is very light. In a 200 set of enterprise networks, the router that can be used in the Internet, it is often possible to bring 50 PCs. It is estimated that the average data traffic of each PC of a network cannot be accurate. So, more objective statements should indicate which type of network is targeted, and is based on the range estimated according to the typical situation, such as "Internet cafard machine 150 ~ 250 (typ)".
In addition, some routers will mention the "maximum allowable carrier amount", which does not refer to the performance of the router, but the number of IP addresses that DHCP can be allocated, 254 minus themselves, this is 253, this Values are meaningless to users.
User Advanced:
The number of collets is very intuitive, very well understood, but it is just an estimated value and experience. Everyone must pay attention to the misunderstandings mentioned above when referring to this data. At the same time, when investigating the credibility of the data, the reputation of the manufacturer of the provision of data should be investigated.
6 WAN port
analysis:
The number of wan decides that the router can be accessed, such as the dual WAN port router can choose two access, such as the ADSL access to the telecommunications, you can also select an access to Unicom or other operators; and four WAN ports Routers can choose four access. One of the benefits of a multi-WAN port is to increase the net bandwidth significantly in the case where less cost is increased. This feature is especially advantageous for Internet cafes. However, it should be noted that after a router base hardware and software are determined, its processing capacity or performance is determined, and there is no change in the increase or decrease of the WAN port number. If the router itself has a surplus relative to the WAN port exit bandwidth, such as the router processing power 40m, the WAN port exit bandwidth is 10m per line, and the dual WAN port router can have 20m throughput. But in turn, if the router itself has only 5m, whether it is a single WAN mouth or a double WAN port, only 5m throughput. The volume of the belt is not likely to increase with the increase of the WAN mouth, it is like a office can only take 100 people, and one door is 100 people, and 10 doors can only take 100 people. User Advanced:
The multi-WAN port router must be strong enough, and there is still a surplus relative to the export bandwidth. If it is limited, multi-WAN port is purely a placement. Now there are different brands in the market in sales, performance is not good. When you choose, you must first examine performance. If it is ARM7 processor, the frequency is less than 100m, and performance is basically insufficient to do more WAN port.
summary:
The main indicators of six routers have been introduced, then how do you correctly evaluate performance when you purchase a product? We recommend a four-step judgment method for STEP-BY-STEP for your reference:
1. Brand: Brand largely represents the quality, reputation and service of the manufacturer and product. We can learn about the capacity and integrity of the manufacturer through the manufacturer's product specifications and performance. The current brand in the broadband router market can be roughly divided into three categories. One is imported well-known brand. Most of these brands are purchased broadband routers products in Taiwan OEM / ODM professional factory. The product quality is generally guaranteed. It is generally difficult to resolve the cause of geographical segments of Taiwan and mainland. The reputation of the manufacturer is also guaranteed, the disadvantage is that the price is expensive, most is the English interface. The second category is the well-known large-scale brand, with independent research and development and manufacturing capabilities, design localization, product compliance with domestic user needs and usage habits, ISP compatibility, quality, reputation guarantee, cost performance is also very high. The third category is small brands, miscellaneous cards, no research and development capabilities, and forced cost pressure, can only get some low-priced, inferior plates, set of shells to label for sale, even some wrong people plagiarize Taiwan Factory design Products, COPY hardware, copy software, quality, and credibility have no guarantee. Since such manufacturers are very little about the router, ignorant is fearless, and also want to seek benefits through ineffective means, so that they often have false words, which harm the consumer interests is these manufacturers. The above, two types of brands are optional, and the third category is not available.
2. Excluding: The product is a complex and cannot look at a "evidence" in isolation. But the user can understand is relatively small, what should I do? It is recommended to use reverse thinking. Since it is difficult to fully prove that the product performance is good, you may wish to find bad. It is very simple to prove, as long as you find a problem, this is the exclusion method. For example, we know that a router uses the ARM7 kernel processor, you don't have to look at other parameters, and performance is limited. The key to the exclusion method is based on the analysis and identification method of the previous pairs, excavating implicit content, identifying its true and false, and finding bad. This step can be greatly reduced. 3. I am in listening: I listen to it, and when I hear it, it is dark. But who is very important, one of the best ways is to find the horizontal assessment data of the credit professional media, pay attention to the premise is credible and professional, which can be used to be objective and able to measure the idea, very reference value. For one, two types of brands, everyone can call or send E-mail to ask manufacturers, usually get a more objective answer.
4. Try to see: After three steps, everyone can basically make judgments and choice. If possible, try again if it is actually. Note that you want to see if you can seek in your network, such as Internet cafes, you are going to be full, it's best to test when you play "Legend". Professionals If there are equipment and software, you can do SmartBits tests and Chariot tests, focus on the following: SmartBits Test NAT Open 64 Byte Pocket Lan-to-Wan Throughput; Multi-Connect Chariot test, etc.
