I've seen the question asked, but never answered to my satisfaction. Does the WNR3500L v2 really have 128MB nvram? I can't figue out how to access it, but perhaps that's just my inexperience. How are other people doing it?
I'm probably not the only one that bought this model because of the large amount of memory that has been advertised.
No it does not have 128MB nvram, nothing i have ever seen does except the buffalo wzr-hp-g300nh v1 and its exceptional because its an Atheros unit which firmware (namely dd-wrt) controls how much nvram it gets, with broadcom its a fixed amount and works differently.
I don't think you know what each one of the differences is, the WNR3500L v2 has 128 nand flash and 128MB board ram, it still only has 32k nvram. nvram isn't something you can really 'access' per say, its where all the critical settings for your router are stored, such as hardware info, port forwards, vpn certs etc etc. pretty much anything that has to be config'd, the setting gets stored in nvram. So the more, the better, i was actually surprised when the WNR3500L v2 came out with a 32k nvram CFE, as most of their newer units are 64k nvram.
Thanks buddee. You are correct that I don't know the difference. :) I'm just trying to figure this out. So, there is 32k nvram which is not really user accessible. I had thought that nvram meant "non volatile ram" in general and was confusing that with the 128MB nand flash since that is also non volatile. It seems to me that some of that much advertised 128MB nand flash should be accessible. Is it not?
Right, but you're still not getting the difference, the 128MB flash nand IS available to the user for 'access' as you put it, the flash ram is how and where firmware images get onto the router to begin with. Honestly, them putting 128MB flash ram is a HUGE waste on the manufacturers part, because no firmware is even near that size, biggest i ever seen is dd-wrt builds being around 16MB.
Nvram is programmed as part of the router's bootloader, in broadcom's case, the CFE, and once again, its 'accessible' because every setting that you config on the router will be stored into the nvram. But nvram isn't something that manufacturers advertise, if that was the case, the RT-N66U would have been shot down in flames long ago because they released such a kick ass piece of hardware with only a 32k nvram CFE. So it became contraversial, as you can see in the many 'convert your CFE to 64k' threads on the asus subject, yes google that, to much info to type out there..
Easier breakdown:
Flash ram = where firmware images get loaded onto the unit and stored
Board ram = where system functions utitlize memory for running at all
nvram ram = where all the settings for everything get stored
The first 2 will be the only ones you see for advertisement, the nvram is something you have to know about personally as like i said, its not something they advertise nor is it something alot of people know about.