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Wireless Performance - 2.4 GHz
I tested the 855 using our wireless test procedures, which use both open-air testing and Azimuth's ACE 400NB Channel Emulator. I started testing the 855 by running open-air IxChariot tests in my lab with the router and notebook containing the DWA-160 Xtreme N Dual Band USB Adapter that D-Link sent along, about 10 feet away from each other in the same room. No other networks were active. But when I saw the results in Figure 8, I had to switch into detective mode.
Figure 8: 2.4 GHz, 20 MHz mode wireless throughput w/ DWA-160
Long story short, the 855 was fine and the problem was the DWA-160's driver. D-Link said it is working on an updated driver, but I didn't want to hold up the review. So I tried both a Linksys WPC600N Dual-band Notebook card and Netgear WNDA3100 dual-band USB adapter, which both turned in proper performance.
I settled on using the Netgear adapter for the remainder of my testing because it is essentially a copy of the DWA-160, using the same Atheros AR9170 MAC/BB and AR9104 Dual-band 2x2 MIMO radio.
The WNDA3100 USB adapter was inserted into a Fujitsu P7120 Lifebook (1.2 GHz Intel Pentium M, 504 MB) notebook running WinXP Pro SP2 with all the latest updates. I used the latest 3.0.0.102 driver and Netgear Smart Wireless 1.3.0.3 utility during testing.
The router had 1.00 firmware and I left all factory default settings in place, except to set Channel 1 for 2.4 GHz tests and Channel 36 for 5 GHz tests. I left WISH enabled (which is the default).
Figure 9 shows a composite IxChariot plot of 2.4 GHz band wireless uplink, downlink and simultaneous up and downlink tests in the default 20 MHz channel bandwidth mode. The best 1 minute average of 56 Mbps was found running simultaneous up and downlink. Similar to other Atheros-based products that I have tested, throughput seems to ramp up at the start of the test. Speed seems to bounce around a bit, too.
Figure 9: Up and downlink throughput - 2.4 GHz band, 20 MHz bandwidth
I repeated the tests switching to Auto 20/40 mode and used a Cognio Spectrum Expert to confirm that Channels 1 and 5 were used with the Channel Width control set to Auto 20/40 MHz. The plot is here, where you can see improved average speeds of just shy of 80 Mbps up/down, 68 Mbps down and 66 Mbps up.
Since not everyone is a fan of the throughput vs. path loss method, I did a quick walk around to my five test locations. With a 2.4 GHz, 20 MHz mode connection, Location 3 speed dropped into the mid-teens and down below 1 Mbps in my difficult Locations 4 and 5. (The Location 5 connection was very tenuous).
User reviews
Average user rating from: 3 user(s)
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worth every penny!
this router is pack with features, but i took one star off because of the lack to create routes in the local network, only support routing for WAN.
in my case my router is been stable and never had a downtime with performance, even with a full load. I ran 3 windows 7 computers, a sharepoint server(2008R2), a DC(2008R2), a few virtual machines, and a xbos 360
i had the dgl 4500 router before this one which i replaced after 6 years of constantan abuse. D-link is one of the best out there!
Pricey, but well engineered, fast, stable, reliable. A notch above.
I've used wireless routers from Netgear (an 802.11g model, and an 802.11n model), from Linksys (WRT600N - 802.11n simultaneous dual mode), and now the D-Link DIR-855. My experience with this model is that it provides a level of stability that I had forgotten could exist. I had grown so accustomed to power-cycling my routers that it actually seemed like something was missing when I realized I hadn't needed to do so with this one in some time.
If you think a router is a router, and wireless-N is wireless-N, you'll probably skip this router because of its price. That's a shame, because its better-than-standard engineering is not going to be appreciated simply by looking at a box on a shelf at the electronics store. Its routing is indeed very fast. It does support jumbo frames where most home routers don't. It manages to go on for extended periods of time without needing to be reset or restarted. It has a rich feature set. And its dual-band simultaneous-use wifi radios are a feature that really ought to become standard.
The marketing for this router suggests using the 5GHz radio band for media streaming, and the 2.4GHz band for general computing. But there's another strategy that I like better: Use the 5GHz band for pure 'N' devices, and the 2.4GHz band for mixed-mode applications. I put my laptops on the 5GHz band, and my WiFi Blackberry, my wife's Iphone, as well as house guests on the 2.4GHz band. That keeps the 5GHz band pure, which allows it to run full speed. The 2.4GHz band I have configured to mixed g/n mode, which incurs a performance penalty. In this way I keep the high performance stuff on one band, and the low performance stuff on the other band.
This approach works best if devices such as BluRay player, media streamer, etc., are hard-wired rather than via WiFi.
Areas for possible improvement in future versions: It's getting to be about time that we start seeing five LAN ports, not four. Make Jumbo Frame support official. Make the USB storage option more like a true NAS link (don't require software to be installed on client computers, and do offer WAN-side FTP/Web access with password protection, of course).
Expensive - Unstable - Unreliable
Having very little knowledge about routers seeing as i had never owned one before i decided it would have been a good start by buying the top of the line product from a well known company. D-link was a company i had heard about and therefore i choose the DIR-855, but only after i had read reviews from various magazines that said it was a fantastic feature packed router!
Unfortunatly the router was sub par. My goal was to have all my movies on my desktop machine in the study and then stream them over the wifi to my laptop in the lounge room (which was connected to the TV). It worked for maybe a few weeks before i started to have problems with it. The signal would drop out, It would power its self off and then wouldn't turn back on again. It was all bad!
I then went onto the D-links DIR-855 forum looking for answers, but that forum was neither moderated nor used. Adding to the pain was that firmware updates for the device were almost non existent and when a new firmware was released the Update feature on the router didn't know it was there forcing me to do my own homework and a manual update.
After that i sent the router in for an RMA and recieved a router in return that was wore than the one i sent in. After telling D-link about the problem they said i should update the firmware and ther was nothing more they could do. So i threw it in the bin!
I suppose routers are a little hit and miss these days seeing as you can find a router with bad reviews, but with users who swear it's the best router ever. So i have now ordered an Asus RT-N16 which seems to be quite stable so i'm hoping i have a better experience with it.
The DIR-855 was the last D-link product i will buy until they get their act together. A $350 router should be a damn good router!
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