Buying advice: dual wan gigabit router for newbie

[hipur]

Hi! This might be my first post here as far as I can remember.

I have two ISPs, one is cable with 120mb down/5mb upload and the other one is fiber with 200mb down/100mb upload.

I have a Asus AC87U that I've purchased to use dual-wan (load balance bonding?) and have better speeds (320mb down/105mb up?), but I get worse speeds using the dual-wan config than with only the fiber ISP, so my cable ISP is not being used right now.

I'm selling the Asus AC87U to get a Nighthawk X4S since I work from home and use the file server a lot, and it has 2 USB 3.0 and one e-Sata port.

I'd like to purchase a wired router to increase my download speed, is this possible? I know very little about networking stuff, just the basic. I've thought about the Mikrotik hEX or hEX Lite (but I don't think I'd be able to configure it), or the NetGear ProSafe GS105Ev2, that's cheaper. I've searched through the forums but I still couldn't figure what would be the best option (less price, easy to configure) for a newbie user.

For my fiber ISP the router/switch must be able to use VLANs otherwise i'd have to use their router (which I don't want to).

Hope some of the experts can help!

 

[Trip]

True newbie + multi-wan at 400+Mb that actually works? Peplink Balance One Core. Add in whatever switching and wireless you want, and you're done.
Or if you're just feigning your "newbie" status, then yeah, there's Mikrotik, UBNT, Sophos, pFsense, etc. etc. But plug-and-play they are most certainly not.

 

[System Error Message]

you forgot openwrt

 

[hipur]

True newbie + multi-wan at 400+Mb that actually works? Peplink Balance One Core. Add in whatever switching and wireless you want, and you're done.
Or if you're just feigning your "newbie" status, then yeah, there's Mikrotik, UBNT, Sophos, pFsense, etc. etc. But plug-and-play they are most certainly not.

Thanks for the help, but unfortunately $400 for that is WAAAAY above my budget. I'm planning on spending something around $50. Is it still possible?

 

[System Error Message]

Thanks for the help, but unfortunately $400 for that is WAAAAY above my budget. I'm planning on spending something around $50. Is it still possible?

by using openwrt. Check first if your router is compatible, if not you're looking at a mikrotik rb750gx3 for instance for some good speeds for dual WAN but it is not really for the beginner not is openwrt. Openwrt at least gives you a visual on your setup though.
pfsense is good for beginners as its the easiest to configure out of the lot but you need a PC for it, so you gotta salvage a PC and use some money to get a 2nd hand NIC as you need at least 2 NICs (preferably non realtek variants).

The cheap and efffective way will always require more effort and skill. This is why mikrotik and pfsense can be cheap, fast and offer a lot but requires skill to use.

 

[EngChi]

I recommend starting with thinking about what you will and will not be getting
- you will NOT be getting any 'automatic' load bonding (whatever you mean under that) in any normal use (torrents may be an exception). think about it, if you are downloading from a single destination serving you content, it will at most use one pipe at the time
- you will likely get basic redundancy (one IPS having problems you are not cut out from internet)
- if you configure it right you get failover.

Beyond that, if you want dual WAN, read about it , learn it, or pay someone to set you up - only you will tell what is more important to you , personal time, or money. if this is a play thing, than spend time. if this is a business (and downtime means money lost) don't skimp on equipment and pay someone to set it up right .

I knew nothing about BSD operating system but figured out pfsense pretty fast. I also knew nothing about mikrotik and that was very simple , working straight out of the box. nothing here is 'rocket surgery'..

 

[sfx2000]

For pfSense - one probably has to go beyond the popular (and recently buggy) C2000 series with a multi-WAN 1GB connection - but since this is not...

pfSense on their SG-2440 can handle this - but this is likely overkill - the SG-2220 is likely good enough if you want to explore Intel and pfSense/FreeBSD...

https://www.netgate.com/products/sg-2220.html

It's still a bit spendy at $299 these days - but Netgate/ADI/pfSense have pricing flexibility - and they're good boxes...

 

[Samir]

For $50 you really can't get very far into any real solution. Good multi-wan routers are more than that and the hardware for a pfsense build will be more than that.