Bufferbloat solution?

[Lain]

I hope I put this in the right section, sorry if I didn't.

I currently have an Amplifi HD mesh system (3 Amplifi HDs with ethernet backhaul) and I love the system and UI but I think I now have a bufferbloat issue.
My cable ISP is 150/15. (I don't have any better options at my location for faster upload).
About 25 wifi devices and 10 wired.

When my QNAP backups up offsite it takes all of my upload bandwidth, it sometimes uploads 100GB-200GB at a time if we've just recently backed up our desktops and can take a day or so.
(I am only uploading changed/new files and I am using compression).
I don't want to hard limit the upload because when nothing is using it, it can have it all, but as soon as something needs the bandwidth I want to throttle my QNAP.
After MUCH online reading it looks like QoS or SQM can help my issue (maybe not completely solve it because of my slow upload but at least help).

I don't want to bridge my Amplifi HD because I love all the features it has and it's super simple to use. I'm pretty tech orientated, smarthome stuff, computer stuff, PLCs, Pi, but have never had to do any networking besides port forwarding and static IPs. I don't mind learning, google and forums are an incredible resource, I just don't want something you need a computer science degree to learn

I'm thinking of putting a EdgeSwitch in front of my Amplifi to take care of QoS. I don't believe the EdgeRouter will work because of the double NAT leaving my Amplifi in router mode.
I looked at a UDM-Pro and ditching the Amplifi and rebuilding my whole home network because the UDM-Pro kind of looks like it has a slick easy to use interface like the Amplifi (I really like that easy app control feel for my network, it's come in handy sooo many times), but the horror stories on it never end and actually contacting Unifi isn't easy and the little interaction I had with their support asking them about this really went nowhere unfortunately (very different than the support I got for some bugs in my Amplifi HDs when I got them). From what I understand also even with all the UDM-Pros power and advancements it doesn't do QoS as well as an EdgeSwitch so may not even solve my issue after investing so much into it.

So besides adding Edgeswitch between my bridged cable modem and Amplifi HD router is there any other simpleish options?
Or maybe I hold off until the UDM-Pro is more stable and has good QoS if that ever happends....


Thanks, again sorry if this is in the wrong section.

 

[Trip]

Welcome Lain. Posting here is just fine.

The simplest solution would be a full swap to either AmpliFi Gamer's Edition, which does have user-adjustable SQM (Ubiquiti's "Smart Queue", aka fq_codel + HTB) on the WAN interface, or, possibly a notch better, Eero Pro, which does fq_codel between nodes and CAKE on the WAN interface (auto-tuned via periodic speed tests plus ISP analysis). Eero's SQM is not user-tunable (only "on" or "off"), albeit still potentially superior for any clients that routinely must connect to remote nodes.

If one of the above won't fly, then, per your thinking, an SQM-capable layer 2 bridge between your AmpliFi HD gateway and the ISP modem is probably the next best option. Whether this would best be applied with an EdgeSwitch I'm not 100% sure. I personally don't run them, as the OS is still not stable enough IMHO (even with v. 1.9.2 released 4 days ago, simply looking at the MAC table in the GUI reboots the switch.... really Ubiquiti?).

Instead, I would simply setup a cheap Qualcomm-based OpenWRT box, which will offer you the best de-bloating effectiveness for your money. Per their SQM benchmarking, an IPQ-40xx based device should get you north of 200Mb/s aggregate, and you only need 165Mb/s at any given time (your 150Mb download plus 15Mb upload), so that should suffice. A refurb Linksys EA6350v3 is only $43 on Amazon -- a perfect, cheap test mule. Just put a fresh install on it (plus SQM packages), then disable wifi, routing and NAT, and create a new software bridge comprised of the two ports connecting to the modem and AmpliFi gateway, and finally put an SQM policy on the bridge (I would use CAKE as your queuing discipline, for starters). Presuming that works, it should quell the bufferbloat, at least up to any clients connected by wire or wireless to the root AmpliFi node; beyond that point (aka the remote AmpliFi nodes) you may still have some bloat on the backhaul links (which is why I suggested Eero as an alternative if you're thinking of a full hardware swap).

Hope some of that helps!

 

[Lain]

Thanks so much for the reply!
I didn’t know the Gamers edition had fq_codel.
I looked around a lot on the forums to see what kind of SQM or QoS it had and all I could find was a latency or throughout setting. But didn’t give much more info than that.The gamer edition would be the easiest solution.

Thank you for the other recommendations. I’m going to check those out also.

Thanks again! Have a great day!