James E. Gaskin

James E. Gaskin writes books (16 so far), articles, and jokes about technology and real life from his home office in the Dallas area. Gaskin has been helping small and medium sized businesses use technology intelligently since 1986.

The Latest from James

Feature

American Cancer Society embraces big data

Teradata data warehouse delivers impressive performance gains, opens doors to additional data-driven improvements.

News

NAS appliances: Not just raw storage anymore

When we did a roundup of Network Attached Storage devices seven years ago, the products boasted an amazing (for the time) 1TB of disk space. This time around, we're testing six units that sport 8TB or larger storage capacities. While...

Review

Best NAS boxes for less than $1,000

Buffalo shattered the $1,000 barrier for a terabyte of shared storage back in 2005. With storage prices continuing to drop, that same $1,000 today can buy a four or even five terabyte network attached storage (NAS) device with RAID 5...

Review

D-Link DFL-210

D-Link likes to advertise that its small business products have "enterprise features," and the DFL-210 certainly has them. However, it also has enterprise complexity for setup and configuration.

Review

How we tested dual-WAN routers

Our suburban test lab includes AT&T U-verse rated at 18Mbps, and Time Warner Cable data access rated at 15Mpbs with "Turbo" mode for faster downloads. Each router was configured with a single WAN connection first then reset for a new...

Review

Check Point Safe@Office 1000N

Check Point calls the 1000N a firewall more than a router, and they advertise gigabit throughput, plus 400 VPN tunnels that can run as fast as 200Mbps. You can also run two 1000N units linked together for high availability.

Review

TRENDnet Dual WAN Advanced VPN Router (TW100-BRV324)

The price and performance of the BVR324 makes it an excellent option for small businesses looking for an affordable dual-WAN connection router.

Review

SonicWall TZ 200

For a small business or branch office, the SonicWall TZ 200, fully loaded with security modules or not, can be all the routing and security needed.

Review

Xincom XC-DPG603

More for small and midsize businesses looking for a dual-WAN router than a company looking for complex security configurations, the DPG603 works invisibly after configuration.

Review

Supersize your WAN

The performance increase, not to mention the redundant Internet connections that all but guarantee uptime, should put these dual-WAN routers at the top of the shopping list for every small business that needs a router.

Review

Netgear ProSafe Dual WAN Gigabit Firewall (FVS336G)

Combining good value with good performance makes the FVS336G an excellent option for small businesses with fewer than 50 users that don't need a large number of VPN connections.