Wireless Reviews

NETGEAR R9000 Nighthawk X10 Smart WiFi Router Reviewed

Details: Published: Monday, 26 December 2016 16:01; Written by Tim Higgins

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Features

The R9000 runs on NETGEAR's genie OS, which continues to expand its feature set. But it still lacks any sort of QoS or device prioritization feature, which is a glaring omission for such a high end router.

Basic mode status

NETGEAR seems focused on taking some business away from its ReadyNAS colleagues with new storage-based features:

Downloader (beta) - Uses FTP, HTTP, BitTorrent and eDonkey services.
Basic storage - Share files via SMB and HTTP / FTP locally and via internet
Media server - Basic media server with TiVo and iTunes (music only) support
ReadyCLOUD - Remote access to your drive via web or app
ReadySHARE Printer - Share USB printers
ReadySHARE Vault - Back up Windows PCs
Cloud Backup - Back up to Amazon Cloud Drive
Plex - Popular media server with transcoding features

The gallery has screenshots and commentary for each of the above. Note the Cloud Backup and Plex features are subscription based after the bundled trial period expires. I should note that while taking the screenshots, I found the router admin screen would hang when the USB drive powered down. I use a Startech USB 3.0 eSATA to SATA Hard Drive Docking Station (SATDOCKU3SEF), which I think controls the drive spin-down. There are no drive sleep settings in the router settings.

The Downloader can handle downloads via FTP, HTTP, BitTorrent or eDonkey services.
Downloads are managed and progress tracked here.
Files can be shared via Windows networking (SMB)
Files can be shared via SMB, FTP and HTTP, locally and from internet. No file sharing support for Apple.
Basic UPnP media and iTunes servers.
Remote access to your drive via app or web (through NETGEAR relay server).
Share your USB printer
Backup for Windows PCs.
Amazon Cloud drive is now supported with real time and scheduled options.
Backup file selection.
You can try out the popular Media server with a three month pass.

Some people also consider UPnP a security risk. It's enabled by default and even shows the ports it automatically opens. But at least it can be disabled.

UPnP settings

NETGEAR has included a few other settings not normally found. The VLAN screen below is a composite; you choose either bridge group or VLAN tag options.

VLAN settings

Port aggregation is enabled by default. There are no controls for the 10GbE SFP+ port.

Port aggregation

Wireless Settings

The wireless settings are what you normally get with the genie OS, which are intentionally simplified and likely to frustrate the advanced users this router is intended for. The default settings are shown; your SSID and password will be different. The default Up to 800 Mbps is the 40 MHz bandwidth mode. Select Up to 347 Mbps if you want 20 MHz bandwidth and Up to 54 Mbps if you want to turn this beast into an 802.11g router. The other 5 GHz options are Up to 800 Mbps for 40 MHz channel bandwidth and Up to 347 Mbps for 20 MHz bandwidth

Wireless settings

The Advanced Wireless settings provide more options, but likely not the ones you're looking for if you're really wrestling with device compatibility problems. The actual screen also contains 60 GHz advanced settings, which I've removed for clarity. WPS is enabled by default and can't be entirely disabled. But NETGEAR lets you disable the PIN method, which they judge as sufficient to defend against WPS' known vulnerabilities.

Advanced Wireless settings

I've merged the 60 GHz radio settings from the Wireless and Advanced wireless screens into a composite below. Channel choices are 2 (default) and 3; the Mode dropdown doesn't present any other choices.