2691 vs 2620XM

[jedicheese]

So, I purchased a 2691 and a 2620XM to begin studying for my CCNA.  I was going to use the 2620XM in conjunction with a NM-2FE2W card as my main router between the outside world, my internal network, and my CCNA lab (might as well get as much use out of this stuff as possible if I'm paying for it).  The research that I did informed me that a 2621XM would be fast enough (and a 2611XM would be just slightly slow).  Unfortunately, I didn't realize the NM-2FE2W doesn't work in the 2620XM

It does work in the 2691 but I don't know if the 2691 is going to be fast enough to support my network needs (I have 15Mbps down/2Mbps up cable).  According to the Portable Product Sheets – Routing Performance manual, it should be double as fast as the 2620XM but I don't know how much I trust reference sheets like that (I've seen the 'our product is amazing' claim where it highlights a specfic situation or disregards real world useage).

My first and most important question is will I be able to get that performance out of the 2691?  Am I going to throttle my bandwidth by using it or will it keep up (with some fine tuning of the config files)?

Assuming the same feature set, am I missing any important features by running the 2691 as my home router instead of the 2620XM due to the difference in hardware?

Supposedly, the VPN ability of the base 2691 is a little under 1 Mbps but with an AIM-VPN / EPII - PLUS card it's nearly 200 Mbps.  If I purchase one, will the router be able to sustain a 15/2Mbps speed VPN connection?

Should I start looking for some WIC-2T or a NM-4A/S?  I got three WIC-1DSU-T1 cards with the above routers.  I assume I can just purchase another WIC-1DSU-T1 and get another router that supports it and I'm off to the races?  With the WIC-1DSU-T1 cards, they don't require a minimum cable length (but I should turn down the power on them)?

[Calin C.]

Regarding traffic:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/routers/ps259/product_data_sheet0900aecd800fa5be.html

You have there a matrix with supported throughput according to Cisco. From the table above the 2691 is better than 2620XM

Here:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19671017-Cisco-2621-Max-Throughput

There is a guy that say he performed some testing and 2691 support indeed up to 70kpps (2620XM support 30kpps)

And finally here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/routers/access/2600/hardware/installation/guide/2600ch1.html#wp1029882

Hardware difference in term of slots.

HTH,

Calin

[Router.Maestro]

The PDF Data Sheet (attached) from the following link was published in May of 2009, and, in Table 5, seems to indicate that the NM-2FE2W is now supported in the Cisco 2600 Series, beginning with IOS 12.0(7)XK, and in  the Cisco 2600XM Series, beginning with 12.2(8)T:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/routers/ps259/product_data_sheet09186a00801aa71c.html

Am I incorrect in reading too much into this, that the NM-2FE2W is now supported, with the proper IOS, in the 2600 and 2600XM?

Anyone have experience with using these NMs successfully in the 2600 series? I believe that Version 2 of this NM (NM-2FE2W-V2) still remains unsupported in these routers.