For a long time, I’d like to build a home cloud for file storage, video streaming, ebook library and 科学上网 style.

Today, at the first day of this new year, I managed to accomplish my plan.

Firstly, I need a 1000+M router supporting at least 2 channel (2.4G and 5G) and another urgent functionality – shadowsocks client on router and VPN client.

After researching multiple brands of routers, at last I locked my target on Cisco, Linksys and NetGear. Yes, they are all foreign brands. This does not necessarily mean that I don’t like the products made by domestic venders. But I just felt really a pity that in router area, I have not trusted domestic venders any more. You may not imagine how many ‘corpses’ of routers there’re at my home. I have bought these router: Mercury, TP-LINK, ASUS WL600gp, NetCore NW762 (special version for Thunder download), MiWIFI, Xiaomi.. the list can go on.

As the most basic functionality of a router, it must ensure the stability of wireless signals. Some extra application functionalities, like external storage via USB, offline downloading, web server etc, should not influence the stability of the whole router performance.

A good way to implement these extra functionalities is to buy a realistic NAS. Yes, though usually costly, a home-class NAS. Only one functionality I’d like to implement is ‘scientific net-surfing’. As a developer and a person posing as a global citizen, I need to frequently access Google, Gmail, GitHub, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube.. I hope when I come home every day, I can surf the internet freely if I don’t do something illegal.

So at last, I chose Synology DS216play as my NAS server and private clout provider. It can provide liable file storage, media center for iPhone/iPad/Mac/TV, photo backup automatically, Mac time machine, remote and offline downloading. Since Cicso and Linksys routers are beyond my budget, I turned to NetGear R6300v2. It attracted me because it is a 1000+M router with 2.4G/5G. I didn’t use the built-in firmware, instead I changed to Merlin firmware for the Shadowsocks support. In this way, the router supported transparent ‘fanqiang’.

Perfect! Enjoy it.