Zyxel Keenetic Giga (version 1) vs TP-Link WR1043ND, or "you need such a beast yourself"?

Question

network hardware

ZyXEL Keenetic Giga (NDMS v2 firmware) works faithfully under the table. Everything ends someday, I have to move, and I bought a TP-Link WR1043ND stock: it will be a radio station with a large margin. It turned out that it’s also a good thing (I haven’t tested it in action), there is even USB.
If the second one doesn't have blocking problems, what's left? ZyXEL or TP Link?
You need FTP / SMB with access from the outside (preferably with the simplest separation of rights). Printing is desirable but not required.

Answer 1

the first giga is an ancient Ralink rt3052 385MHz + Atheros AR8316 gigabit switch
from the pros - hardware NAT, free for the CPU (in the case of IPOE and pppoe, in the case of pptp / l2tp a little less paid than pure software), and support for hardware offloads in NDMS is implemented well .
Of the minuses, a weak CPU, i.e. when used for its intended purpose, as a router, there are no problems, half a gigabit on IPOE or about a hundred on pptp / l2tp tunnels, it can. Any third-party load will be a problem for him.
You most likely bought TP-Link WR1043ND V2 , if black, it's Qualcomm Atheros QCA9558, 720MHz, + Atheros AR8327N gigabit switch
Of the pluses - a fresh, smart stone, hardware NAT is present in the switch, able to NAT a gigabit uplink in ipoe, and if the firmware is fresher, then pppoe. Tunnels are ~200mbit, the 2x difference with giga is due solely to the 2x difference in frequency.
Of the minuses - the regular software is inferior to the zyukhel, in principle there are basic things, but no additional packages and modules. In terms of stability and straightness, it is also inferior to standard software, on older versions of pppoe it is slow, at the level of tunnels. This is partly offset by the fact that it is possible to install OpenWRT and install any software available in the repository, at the same time stability will improve, but hardware offloads are lost, i.e. we run into 300Mbit / s routing on IPoE.
I strongly do not recommend installing OpenWRT on giga, the speed becomes very sad due to the stuntedness of the chip and disabling unloading.

Answer 2

it is necessary to check the TR link in work, judging by the reviews, it works fine for someone, for someone it’s very bad. Well, Zukhel is Zukhel, he always works stably.