Routing Performance
I used Ixia's IxChariot to check out the N1's routing speed after updating the N1 to the latest 1.01.23 firmware. Using the Throughput.scr with TCP and file size set to 1,000,000 Bytes from the default 100,000, I was able to measure 92 Mbps WAN to LAN and 90 Mbps LAN to WAN. This is essentially 100Mbps wire-speed, given the limitations of Windows XP's TCP/IP stack.
Total simultaneous throughput in both directions came in at 132 Mbps (Figure 12), which shows the full capability of the N1's router.
Figure 12: N1 Total simultaneous throughput plot (click to enlarge)
But when I ran the Max Number of Simultaneous Connections test that I use to gauge how well a router will handle P2P applications, the N1 turned in extremely poor results. I was able to get the router to handle only 5 up and 5 down connections for my pretty easy one-minute test. Needless to say, this won't make the N1 a good choice if P2P file sharing is one of your favorite activities.
You can see the N1's routing results plotted against other products in our Router Charts.