You can monitor your uploads and downloads to see what’s taking up your bandwidth, and then take action from there.
If you’re concerned about the time your kids are on the ‘net, or what sites they’re visiting, you have the option to restrict those by schedule or by DNS lookup. Synology’s top router makes its mark as a device that gives you minute control over your home network.
What it does give you is a wireless networking hub that has a huge amount of customisation in its inteface and features - you’re essentially buying a mini-PC that can control your network throughput as well as running double duty as a torrent downloading box or a VPN client or a private cloud server. The $389 asking price is a significant amount of money for a router, but at the same time it’s not much when compared to its rivals from Asus and Linksys and Netgear. The Synology RT2600ac should appeal to the same ‘net-savvy individual that was tempted by the RT1900ac. If you’re running your ‘net off a 4G hotspot (like I am at the moment), then an alternative router like Dovado’s Tiny AC and its SpotBoost feature might be a better choice.
Similarly, you can’t connect the RT2600ac to an external wi-fi network and use it as a wireless access point (update: you can do this with Synology’s 1.1.4 software update). It’s worth remembering that Synology’s support of 4G dongles continues to not be a strong point - you can’t plug in a hotspot or USB 4G dongle and have the ‘net up and running through the RT2600ac’s fantastically powerful wi-fi straight away. As it is, you can’t connect more than a few devices through wired. The RT2600ac doesn’t support dual gigabit teaming for anything other than WAN connections, though, so that DiskStation point is moot for now, but maybe if the router had more LAN ports it would be a possibility. There’s space on the rear I/O panel, there’s processing power for days, and considering Synology’s target market might well have a dual-gigabit-capable DiskStation NAS set up. As well as that, you’ve got four gigabit-class Ethernet LAN ports and gigabit WAN connectivity should you require it, with the option for dual gigabit teaming for very special individuals by combining WAN and the first LAN port, although this isn’t something I expect any home user to ever need.įor a router with the RT2600ac’s massive customisation options, fast throughput and flexibility, I found myself wishing it had more than four LAN ports available to use. That’s achieved through a combination of tech like beamforming and MU-MIMO that comes courtesy of the 802.11ac Wave 2 standard.
Under the hood, the RT2600ac is a powerful piece of technology: it boasts a combined 2.53Gbps theoretical speed across its different wireless network bands, with up to 800Mbps possible across the long-range 2.4GHz 802.11ac and 802.11n bands and 1733Mbps on the short-range 5GHz ac and n frequencies.
If you’re streaming data between the devices in your house - maybe you have a bunch of movies saved to a network hard drive - then this gives you a great reason to upgrade to a high-powered router. It’s not a modem router - you’ll need a standalone modem for your ADSL, cable or NBN connection still - but gives your home network the advantage of being a much faster and more robust setup. The Synology RT2600ac is a $389 wi-fi router that brings together the latest networking hardware and Synology’s quickly maturing Synology Router Manager software. If you like tinkering with your network, you could do a lot worse than the RT2600ac.
Within the $300 to $500 price, one strong contender is Synology’s RT2600ac - an upgraded version of the excellent RT1900ac, it has even faster wi-fi and the same suite of excellent add-on features like an integrated media server and VPN client. If you’re thinking of upgrading your home network, you’ve got a huge range of choice of which wi-fi router to buy.