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Best router for a 1Gb WAN + a question about Asus routers

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TheUn4seen

New Around Here
First post, so hello to all and straight to the point:

The situation:
-I recently got a 1000/60Mbps connection as an upgrade from 250/50Mbps;
-I currently have an Asus RT-AC56u running Merlin 384.6

The router tops out at ~800Mbps for a single machine, less if two or more load it at once. This isn't a problem per se, but this particular router has flaky 2.4GHz band (occasionally drops out completely or doesn't work after a reboot), so , after several years of loyal service, this might be a good opportunity to get another one.

Currently I see a few ways of going about it:
1. Get a Mikrotik hEX for LAN and leave the AC56u as an access point. The problem here is that I need the 2.4 band for legacy devices and my AC56u is a bit unreliable.

2. Get the hEX and a cheap 802.11ac access point (if so, which would be the best mixed 2.4/5GHz ac/N for a small apartment?)

3.Get another consumer router - I'm thinking about Asus AC88u which should perform adequately and the 8 port switch is convenient, most of my devices work on wired LAN. This is the easiest way, but also the most expensive. And where's the fun in simply throwing money at a problem?

4.Get a cheap RT-AC5300 or an AC88u with faulty 2.4 band, use it only for LAN+5GHz and get a cheap 2.4GHz AP (which I could probably get for pennies if not free - it's just for legacy devices, doesn't have to be fancy) - right now I think this might be the most fun way to do it.

Which leads me to the question: What's going on with Asus' routers and 2.4GHz band? I just checked local eBay-like site and there are a lot of AC5300, AC3200, AC88u and others listed as "5GHz only" or "faulty 2.4GHz" going for as low as ~50USD. Is this a known hardware fault or something relatively easy to fix? I'm certainly not above buying and fixing a used router to save some hard earned money, and I know my way around a hotair station and JTAG interfaces.

But, If buying another router is the way, which one would be the best? I set my eyes on the AC88u, but am open to suggestions. The AC88u is probably on the top end of what I would consider sane to spend on a consumer router, but the less I spend the better, hence my idea of buying a cheap Asus and supplementing it with a separate AP.
Priorities:
-WAN-LAN throughput is the main concern
-WiFi performance is not - I use WiFi mostly for my phones, Raspberry Pis and such. Anything on par with the AC56u would be enough (by which I mean 802.11ac on 5GHz and workable 2.4GHz g/N).
-Preferably two USB ports, just for the convenience of hooking up a portable drive.
-I lean towards Asus routers just because I got used to Merlin software and general feature set. I need the router to be able to function as an openVPN server, USB+Samba is nice to have, I find myself using AIcloud if I need to offload photos and so on.

Sorry for the wall of text and thanks in advance for any input.
 
Welcome to SNB, and now straight to the answer.

Seems like you're knowledgeable and have been through the ringer enough with the consumer stuff that you're probably ready for a higher grade of gear all the way around, including a move to discrete components for routing, switching and wireless. In that vein, I wouldn't even waste your time trying to troubleshoot the Asus stuff. Not when there are perfectly functional SMB and higher grade solutions out there that won't break the bank.

Routing - As long as you won't be routing traffic in-software via CPU (by running OpenVPN, various *nix packages, etc. on the box), and/or wanting to do so at full utilization, all you'll need is something than can do hardware-offload for NAT at 1-2Gb/s or so. A MikroTik hEX may get you there, but may also be a bottleneck; a 1Ghz+ MIPS/ARM box like a UBNT ER-4/12 or RB3011/4011 will likely get you there, with room to spare. My only remaining concern would be the possibility of saturating your 60Mb/s upload. If yes, then your upload would probably deserve some proper SQM-based QoS, which would force all traffic through the CPU, including the 1Gb/s download. For that scenario, an x86 embedded box like an i3/i5 Qotom/Protectli unit off Amazon, running a distro capable of fq_codel or CAKE, such as pfSense, OpenWRT or Untangle, would be your best bet. Total cost here could be as little at $60 or as much as $600, all depending on what you want to run on the box and how much packet processing you want to apply to the traffic. Your call.

Switching - Best practice would be a discrete L2 (or L3) switch, but since you're only looking to power a single AP and you don't need a ton of ports, you could probably just run a router with an integrated L2 switch, like a Ubiquiti ER-12, then use a PoE injector to power your AP. If you do want a dedicated switch, go for something proven. Don't skimp. HPE OfficeConnect/Aruba or Cisco SG, at the very least. No TP-Link, TrendNet, etc. Netgear only if you have to at a local store. (I'll catch heat for that "no" list, especially on SNB, but I stand by it) UniFi switches aren't worth it unless you're doing an all-UniFi stack. And avoid Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch and MikroTik CRS; neither are fully out of the oven yet, IMHO. If you do choose a discrete switch, a good one will be $100-200+ for 8-10 ports, but very much worth it. Trust me.

Wireless - Since wireless is of less importance, you won't have to spend much for something decent. The $65 TP-Link EAP225v3 is great bang for the buck, can be PoE powered, and even scaled out as part of a centrally-controlled, multi-AP setup if you desire (Omada).

As far as USB / network storage goes, I suppose hanging a drive off a router on a USB port would suffice for the occasional temporary storage job, but if you ever plan on making routine use of network storage, just save yourself the brain damage and put a proper NAS or a $50 used PC on the network running Linux with a couple drives in software-raid or Windows running DrivePool. So many ways to come at network storage on the cheap, which will smoke the pants off a USB-attached peripheral for regularly relied-upon storage.

Equal apologies for my wall of text, but I hope some/all of it is useful.
 
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Thank you for the comprehensive answer.
Moving away from consumer stuff seems way more interesting. I found a Mikrotik RB3011UiAS-RM which seems to fit the bill nicely - ten GBe ports, PoE in and out and even SFP if the need arises. There's also the RB4011IGS+RM with a quad core CPU. Either one would be more than enough for my needs and their price seems reasonable.
For switching, the ten ports on RB3011/4011 should suffice for now, but I do have a Dell EMC N1108T I got from someone and never actually used.
USB on a router is just a "quick convenience" type of thing, I actually have two NAS boxes, my beloved Netgear RNDU2000 and RNDP2000 I got cheaply a while ago - one works as cold storage, and the other is for everyday use. Both X86 running R6 software (essentially Debian with custom Webmin skin) thanks to the R4-to-R6 project.

Thanks again, I now have a better refined idea of what would be the most reasonable way to go forward.
 
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