For those still using Apple AirPort Extreme...a tale of ignorance and procrastination

[JemHadar]

I guess there is a special kind of cautionary tale that shares two traits. The first goes something like "I should have known better", the second being, "now all pieces of the puzzle fall into place".

This tale starts with the purchase of an Apple AirPort Extreme router. Calling the router provided by my ISP garbage would be doing a disservice to garbage, so a simple, minimalistic and elegant solution was delivered by the AirPort Extreme.

This unobtrusive compact white box performed as advertised and when Apple announced they would leave the router market and would no longer support their networking offspring I didn't pay too much attention to it. That was the "I should have known better" part.

Over the last few months I noticed a severe slowdown in VPN performance which I attributed 100% to the Company IT infrastructure (partly confirmed by our IT Heroes from the local helpdesk).

I also experienced a crippling delay when editing metadata through the WEISS MAN301 app on my iPad (one of the most elegant and practical ways of editing FLAC metadata).

Both issues although frustrating, mildly annoying and inconvenient couldn't break the spell of procrastination I had fallen under. A spell sustained by my ignorance about the true culprit of all these woes.

The thing that snapped me out of it, the straw that broke the camel's back, were the dropouts I suffered on my Auralic Aries G2 Wireless Roon Endpoint. Interrupting moments of musical bliss. No, No, No, this disturbance in the SpaceTime continuum cannot stand.

I quick lookup on the Auralic support site immediately pointed to the Apple AirPort Extreme as being totally unfit for purpose in the Auralic ecosystem and by extension all streaming applications.

So a frenzied hunt for a new router began.
Three contenders made the shortlist: Linksys Velop MX5 (shares looks with AirPort Extreme), Netgear Nighthawk AX8 (shares looks with Kylo Ren's shuttle) and Asus RT-AX88U (shares looks with spider head thingy from the second "The Thing" adaptation).

All three made the shortlist in true Scotty "I need more power" tradition and because all three support 802.11ax aka WiFi 6. WiFi 6 being the de facto standard on all new WiFi devices.

The most alien of the three prevailed as I could not find any relevant negative comment about the Asus RT-AX88U. On the contrary, the ASUS seemed to be the clear winner by a long shot as documented in reviews by IT people who setup and tweak this kind of gear for a living.

Installation was a breeze, the iPad app is effective, the router portal site is thorough but not overwhelming and my word this thing is a beast.
Editing on the WEISS app is restored to its former glory. VPN performance has significantly improved. And the Auralic Aries G2 once again performs its duties as fountain of joy with gusto.

I reckon I might have overdone it a bit with the specification. But in our little world one cannot have too much power me thinks.

One last observation. At some point I considered installing a Mesh Network, however the Auralic site mentions that media streaming and Mesh Networks don't always play nice with each other, hence the slight overkill...just to make sure one router would suffice.

Now all pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place again and the fabric of the SpaceTime continuum has been restored.

For those Apple AirPort Extreme users, I hope this cautionary tale serves you well.

[Still-One]

For the first several months after I decided to move from my Airport Extreme to a Netgear Orbi Mesh set-up I had nothing but problems. After having the rock solid Apple device (and associated Apple Support) the Orbi and Netgear support was far from helpful. I have posted here and elsewhere that the Orbi support was probably some of the worst I have ever encountered with anything I have owned. What made it worse I had to pay for support after 90 days.

After much trial and error, combining support from Orbi, Small Green Computer, browsing the net, adding unmanaged switches, and swapping out standard ethernet for fiber optic I now have a rock solid set-up.

[antipop]

I dropped the airport a few years ago and moved to Netgear which I recently upgraded to the Asus GT-AX11000 coupled with 2 Asus AX92U in mesh configuration.

This allowed the backbone to be fully Wifi 6 speed and be able to have all the devices in the house communicating.

The Airport was such an elegant solution and I'm sure Apple would have made a fantastic mesh device. I'm sad that they discontinued the line.

The Asus is very ugly but it's reliable and fast, very fast.

[clpetersen]

ASUS routers work very well despite their looks (function over form I guess) and their software is quite good. For those with a family, the 'AI Protection' - parental controls - works very well. Stops the really bad stuff and does not interfere with anything else.

[bigblue]

With my set up (Time Capsule and Airport Extreme) I get 250 Mbit/s download and 315 Mbit/s upload. How much speed do one need in order to not get drop outs?

[nicoff]

Originally Posted by bigblue

With my set up (Time Capsule and Airport Extreme) I get 250 Mbit/s download and 315 Mbit/s upload. How much speed do one need in order to not get drop outs?

You got plenty speed already. If you are getting dropouts your problem is not speed but something else.

[oddeophile]

Try a different channel

[bart]

Jacques, thank you so much!
We were experiencing drop-outs lately from time to time, and back-ups of our MacBook Pros were getting problematic.
I guess we were also procrastinating, because we knew support of our old Time Capsules had been stopped.

I will look into the Asus suggestions.

But how do you restore the automatic back-up capability?
(in our case every hour!).

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by bart

Jacques, thank you so much!
We were experiencing drop-outs lately from time to time, and back-ups of our MacBook Pros were getting problematic.
I guess we were also procrastinating, because we knew support of our old Time Capsules had been stopped.

I will look into the Asus suggestions.

But how do you restore the automatic back-up capability?
(in our case every hour!).

I left my Extreme connected to my network but turned off WiFI. Time Machine still sees that as the location for regular back-ups.

[Antonmb]

I also converted from Apple routers after having dropout problems. I had a Time Capsule, which was my main router as well as storage for Time Machine backups, and an Airport Express to gain extra range. I went with the Synology RT2600ac as my main router and Synology MR2200ac, which together form a mesh system. The setup has worked flawlessly and gives me great coverage. I went with the Synology because of good reviews, familiarity of the operating system since I use a Synology NAS, and the ability to have two WAN connections (I have two DSL lines with separate modems). Re backups, Time Machine on my Macs can backup to the Synology NAS.