I have a home network consisting of several raspberry pis, a Roku, and a total of 4 laptops and smartphones.
Currently, I have the ISP provided router/modem in bridge mode which I’ll refer to as my modem. This is connected to my own ASUS wireless router/Access Point which I’ll refer to as my access point (AP). The AP supports about 900Mbps. I’m fine with this bottleneck for now as I intend to upgrade my AP in the future
My goal here is to purchase a router that supports the 1.5Gbps that’s coming from my ISP’s modem. I’d like to use it to set up a VLAN and tinker with, with the ability to connect 4 devices in addition to my access point.
The problem I’m facing is that I haven’t yet found a router that’s <$200CAD which supports 1.5Gbps. There are probably brands I’m unaware of, so would you fine folks be able to recommend me a router?
Are you looking for a wireless router, or an ethernet router? Either way, look at MikroTik. Iirc, they have few cheaper options with a 2.5g sfp cage.
If you can swing it, the RB5009U is a great one.
I’m looking for an Ethernet router which I’d connect a wireless access point to for WiFi.
Thanks for the recommendation. It’s a bit out of my price range but sfp might be an issue for my since my modem and Ap don’t have that port.
An sfp is just an interface type for a card that can house various ports, like a 2.5g ethernet port.
Thank you, that looks like a great option.
Mikrotik is awesome. They are super powerful and super flexible.
But they don’t hold your hand, and have a hell of a learning curve.
Luckily, the quick-set default config thing is actually decent these days. So it’s easy enough to get a basic setup going, then figure out how the bridge works, vlan tagging, where to add IPs, DHCP settings, DNS whatevers and all that.
It took me about 6 run through of setting it up before I stopped locking myself out accidentally! Probably another 6 before I was confident setting up a new vlan with routing/DHCP/etc.Just be aware that there are a lot of popular tutorials out there based on older versions of the software, and older ways of doing things. Look for videos from 2022+
Adding a 2.5g card to a PC it’s the way to go. I put one in my mini 1l PC and run pfsense on it.
sfp might be an issue for my since my modem and Ap don’t have that port
SFP is something like a port for ports - you buy an SFP module based on what port you need, so you can just buy a network device with SFP cages that can handle your required speed and then pick a combination of Ethernet / optical SFP modules that match your needs. But the modules aren’t exactly cheap, even the Ethernet ones.
Oh, I see. I appreciate the explanation.
You could get a Dell poweredge r210ii or similar and add a dual nic pcie card. Load up opnsense and you’re good to go
Speeds over 1gbps are still costly. Not like it used to be but still a cost driver. If you increase your amount to 350 you could use a 4mb 64gb like this
Slap opnsense or pfsense on it and you’re good to go - like this dude did
Lots of routers on AliExpress that you can get for between $200-300 USD. If you want to run PFSense, then you need an option with an Intel NIC. Search for i226-v, that should narrow it down. Most routers that don’t specify their NIC use a cheaper one from Realtek or some other brand. Those also work fine, but they’re a little sketchy with PFSense so you should plan on installing OPNsense or OpenWRT if you get one of those instead. Topton is a popular brand with a decent reputation, look for those. They’re also on Amazon with a markup.
Another option would be a pre-built router from Firewalla, Protectli, or PFSense. Those cost more but they don’t require you to flash your own firmware, and they come with a warranty and customer service, etc.
I don’t have a specific router I can recommend, but tp-link is usually affordable and a brand I trust
I have a nanopi R5S which has one 2.5 gig port and 2 1 gig ports.
It could be fun to set up my own router… Are you running OPNSense/pfSense on it?
Its a arm device so no. It runs friendlywrt which is a soft fork of openwrt
Zyxel makes some good entry level 10g switches that are fairly reasonable in price. Some dumb switches and some managed
Switch != Router, and I wouldn’t use a Zyxel anything even if you paid me - their approach to security is to just not bother, and their hardware is made out of whatever scraps they can find on the factory floor
I used a zyxel mini wifi router once. It would soft-brick when changing the subnet range. There was another cool feature that would effectively prevent a new admin password from taking effect until you entered a second one (basically creating a queue of passwords). That was fun to figure out.
Yeah, I had fun trying to work out why DHCP was totally broken - turns out the Zyxel router would respond to any ARP request it saw, for any MAC anywhere. There was a setting you could enable to make it work properly, but it went in the bin shortly after when I found out the VPN component would let in anyone who asked politely, and that there were ways to get at the admin panel from the WAN even when you had turned that off
I love these GL.iNet products (their portable models are fantastic, too). Runs OpenWRT, built in support for Mullvad (both OpenVPN and Wireguard), reasonably priced; fantastic kit.
So they essentially sell WiFi routers that come with their own native firmware based on OpenWRT out of the box? Do you know if you can flash mainline OpenWRT so it continues to get support? The price definitely is reasonable for me to consider running one of these as an access point.
I’m not familiar with this brand and from searching, they’re a company from Singapore but ship out of China. If you flash your own OpenWRT, would that eliminate any privacy/security concerns? Asking out of ignorance.
However, right now I’m looking for a dedicated Ethernet router but thanks for the info!
You know, I have no idea about flashing ability.
I missed the “ethernet only” part, sorry! I just buy Netgear routers, but they’re all unmamaged so relatively dumb.
