Router recommendations

I've always found smoothwall (though others prefer ipcop/m0n0wall) to be the best routing solution for the money (an old pc and free* s/w), not sure how well 'home' bits of kit will handle 8 sustained users trying to max out torrents etc at the same time, gaming/surfing yea, 8x UTorrent + surfing/gaming.... perhaps not.

Downside is it's not a fire and forget solution - it will require patching once in a while but the patch packs are automatic once you download them/upload to the box. It will use more power than a home router and it is after all a pc so hardware failure is usually modular.
 
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Linksys WRT54GL with your choice of third party firmware, or a Cisco 8(5|7)1.

To some extent, a cheap low-spec PC with your choice of cut down *nix distro (a la m0n0wall, Smoothwall, Clark Connect, IPCop) will do the job too.
 
My vote goes for m0n0wall. My worry too would be that with that many users domestic kit would crash with the number of connections. I experienced this with both Linksys WRT54Gs version 1.1 and 2.2 aswell as a ZyXEL 652H before moving to m0n0wall. Contrary to what you might assume however I would says it's just as easy to use as off the shelf kit (if not easier) - and on that note you may be interested to hear that embedded systems preloaded with m0n0wall are available, very similar in size to your average Netgear/Linksys etc. price is in the region of £150 I think, which isn't that bad compared to the £120 I paid for my ZyXEL I think. No linking of course as it's a competitor to OcUK.

I'm surprised no one's accused me of an obsession with m0n0wall yet the number of times I've recommended it now on here but it really is that good :o

Hope this helps, null :)
 
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