It's a rabbit hole of my own creation: a while back I bought an external hard drive to use as my computer backup, with the plan to put it in the closet where the modem, router, and LAN switch are situated. This keeps that backup in a separate place from all of the computer equipment (if, dog forbid, another burglary would happen, the backup would be overlooked if the desktop computer was stolen from the office.) Putting it there also keeps a another piece of equipment off of my already crowded computer desk.

Today (when I had something else I really should be doing) I decided to plug in the HD to the USB port on the Netgear router. I addressed the router and logged in, and found notification of a firmware update. Took care of that. The system works fine. But I'm also seeing that this is an End Of Life product that will not be supported in the future. So going to the trouble of setting up the external backup is something I should put off until I update the router.

The modem I'm using is recently supplied by AT&T (fiber optic) but I have a passthrough setup with my router so I didn't have to fool with changing any of my network stuff, the router is still doing all of the heavy lifting. I also use a switch to have enough ports the serve the various wired data ports in most rooms around the house.

There is no gaming here and the streaming I do is fine with the 300G service I pay for. Routers that used to be dual band (2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz) now also offer 6 GHz (lower range, higher speed) as an FCC requirement. My phone could connect to it, but that's all. The house is 2400sf and the yard is large and being connected in the separate garage is useful. There is a wireless access point (connected to the LAN) in the den that helps with that (and my next door neighbor sometimes connects to it if her service goes out. She works at her kitchen table that is closer to my system than the one in her own house. We have an arrangement.)

I've bought various brands over the years, and except for Netgear, most of them have had some internal failure and just stopped working. Asus had a lovely interface but wasn't around long enough to do much with it. I've had Linksys die in the past. TP-Link seems to be the darling these days.

I see a technology called "easy mesh" that I think I've managed on my own with the wireless access box. What all of this is leading up to is there are a lot of reasonably priced routers out there without all of the bells and whistles, just the 6 GHz upgrade, but I want something that is a new enough model that I won't face another End Of Life situation with a device that is still for sale now but was in fact released a few years ago.

What devices are you using and what would you consider switching to if the occasion arises?

This backup drive is meant to be used for a full fresh backup of the computer so that if I decide to upgrade to Win11 I'll still have the backup if I want to revert back or if Win11 loses anything. But that's another struggle for a different day. (I have an external hard drive on my desk with a backup now, using the Win7 image backup that is still in both Win10 and 11. This would be a duplicate to that backup.)