Wireless Testing Comparison

[ITGURU]

What is the best way to do a fair comparative test between 2 Access Points and wireless performance?

I have 2 Pro grade Wireless AC APs, one D-link and one Unify and want to do a fair test to do a side by side comparison.

[AlanD]

Depends on what you mean by a fair test. A single client with a single access point won't give you the same as 20 clients with an access point... Nor the same as 50 clients... Nor the same as 20 mixed ac and n clients... Nor the same as when one access is in the same room as the clients compared to outside in corridor. Nor will the results be the same in a busy classroom block with lots of neighbouring busy access points. So I would say pick what is for you a critical scenario.. Possibly 30 ac2 laptops in same room as access point... Possibly with a deliberately narrow channel if it's going to be in a busy block. I tend to pick client devices with fast ssd.. And put them in a loop loading a file from a fast ssd raid on a server. But let's be honest they all share one of two or possibly three chipsets...the same as in your clients... And they share same microcode that actually creates checks sends and receives packets. Do it's only the controlling and management software that is different.... And that makes little difference to performance although can make a difference to layer 7 visibility etc if you are not able to do this at your firewall/filter. An access point tweeted to perform well in one scenario won't necessarily win in a different scenario.