Western Digital My Net N900 HD Dual-Band Wireless Router Review

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Manufacturer:	Western Digital
Product:	My Net N900 Router (WDBWVK0000NSL-HESN)
Date:	Fri, Jun 15, 2012 - 12:00 AM
Written By:	Ken Brown -
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Final Thoughts & Conclusions

I have to tell you that I really wasn’t prepared at all to be especially impressed with Western Digital’s initial offering when I first heard about the My net line of routers. After playing with the WD N900 though, I am honestly impressed. It’s not as if the speeds of the My Net blew my socks off as they were on par with the Netgear during tests with a Netgear USB dongle…no, I was more impressed by the GUI and ease of use of operation. Usually it takes a few iterations and versions for companies to dial in on making a user comfortable with where everything is on a computing device. Western Digital has obviously learned a tremendous amount from their experiences with their set-top media players.

I loved the fact that you could port forward with ease helping those of us who BitTorrent. It is also worth noting that WD makes it quite easy to manage your wireless networks and Guest Wireless networks. If you want to create your own Cloud Storage, everything is here for that as well. Unlike some other manufacturers, Western Digital gives you a bit more management power when it comes to the devices you attach to the My Net N900. The GUI is as simple or advanced as you want and you will be hard pressed to find a feature missing. The Western Digital Engineers even left room for improvement as you can update your firmware with a touch of a button.

We ultimately learned a lesson about what to look for an expect from these multi-band routers. The theoretical maximum speeds from these devices is 900Mbps, thus the "900" in the name "WD My Net N900". This assumes all antennas are connecting at the maximum speed to get this you must have thus the "3x3" or "Tri-Band Receiver" that shoppers will be exposed to when purchasing their next-generation router. Most people when they get a new router from the store shelves might

Both our Netgear RangeMax WNDA3100 USB adapter and Intel 6230 wireless adapter are Dual Channel (2x2) adapters and will give us a maximum connection speed of 300Mbps. This is fine and dandy, but when you are integrating one of these next-gen routers in your small office or home, don't assume that your "Auto" or "Default" settings will give you these speeds. First off, you need to make sure you enable WMM and QoS for your router. Then you need to find the best channel to broadcast you Wi-Fi network on. For our test, a channel in the 5Ghz frequency did the trick. For other users, your optimal speed may be in the 2.4Mhz range. One thing is for sure, to get the maximum speed from your router, you need to spend some quality time searching out which is the best frequency or bandwidth to use.
WD My Net N900

One of the main attractions of the WD My Net N900 is the FasTrack+ to optimize multimedia data over your home network. This seems to work as advertised as the WD My Net router streamed our HD video a bit better than Netgear’s flagship router. I'm really not certain if FasTrack+ is really all that much better than the normal WMM / QoS abilities but we like that Western Digital is embracing what users are looking for in their home networking gear. Western Digital has really done their homework presenting a great looking product with plenty of bells and whistles. Besides the sleek design that includes an on-board active cooling fan, the router boasts 7 Gigabit ports that you will be hard pressed to find in any other consumer-based network product. The Western Digital My Net N900 retails for $179.99 and should be on store shelves today.

Legit Bottom Line:
As a debut product for Western Digital, we have to give the My Net N900 high marks. The functionality and the GUI make this a perfect purchase for the beginner as well as the network engineer.

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Review Index

Page 1 - Western Digital Introduces New My Net Family
Page 2 - WD My Net N900 Review Unit
Page 3 - Setting up the WD My Net N900 Router
Page 4 - Testing the WD My Net N900
Page 5 - More Testing of the WD My Net N900 Router
Page 6 - Final Thoughts & Conclusions

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