Need help choosing a router

[sirbrent]

Hi SNB,

After serious frustration with limitations of current of wireless routers I am ready to take the plunge and build a "real" home network. My plan is to use a wired 6+ port router and add wireless with 2 AP's.

I need help choosing a router for my home and would love some input on which one.

My non-negotiable requirements:

• 6+ gigabit ports
• A modern firmware with advanced options and firewall
• Support for OpenWRT or DD-WRT if I outgrow limitations of stock firmware or just feel like experimenting
• Out-of-box syslogd support (send to IP)
• Solid and fast--won't choke with lots of open connections
• IPv6 support
• Costs less than $150

Would likes, but not absolutely required:

• Dual WAN support (available to config for load blancing and redundancy)
• Ethernet link aggregation
• USB 3.0 port(s) with built-in SMB server

I would sincerely appreciate guidance on this matter. Additionally if anyone has a recommendation for dual band N/AC access points I would be extra thankful!

 

[L&LD]

Your wants are everyone's here. (Particularly 'less than $150', DD-WRT, not so much).

I don't think that such a beast is available though.

 

[System Error Message]

If you do use openwrt and dd-wrt not all routers are baseless. Ubiquiti and mikrotik have good firmwares and do more than what those 3rd party firmwares do. You could also achieve the same using a PC and pfsense.
If your needs are only having a router and not other features like wifi, installing htop or other software and so on than mikrotik is a solid choice as they have various routerboards at different prices. The key to choosing a mikrotik routerboard is the architecture. Firstly how much throughput do you want? Their recent MIPS based offerings will do 300Mb/s or more for their newer ones especially with the help of hardware acceleration can achieve gigabit, they are flexible in that you can actually do things with hardware acceleration but it is not obvious. Their PPC based routerboards can handle a lot of throughput with configs without hardware acceleration, their TILE based are even more impressive. They also have dual core ARM using qualcomm's chip that will do 500Mb/s of NAT without using hardware acceleration.

I stress the bit about hardware acceleration because ubiquiti may have amazing claims to their routers but their claimed throughput is with hardware acceleration and routing, not NAT. Most internets require NAT.
mikrotik has IPV6 support and various features, their IPV6 feature is quite solid.
Some of their recent routers have usb3 but dont hope for NAS as mikrotik routerOS is bad for NAS.
Mikrotik routers have been known to handle hundreds of clients without failing, essentially it is going to depend on your internet bandwidth and how well you configure QoS (such as do you want to drop excess demand?).

If you want a "real" network why not get one of these non consumer routers i mentioned, unlike any consumer router they have more features (except for openWRT's software library) and are much more solid because they are made for the hardware. DD-WRT, open-WRT, tomato arent the pioneers in networking, they added the featureset to consumer routers as they ran linux. Mikrotik and cisco actually have developed their own protocols and contributed to the networking world. Ubiquiti probably in some way for wireless. DD-wrt, consumer routers and such cant compare to enterprise or enterprise alternative routers.

These routers have always had firmware that allows configurablility and the "modern" features you requested for decades.

 

[sirbrent]

Thank you for this detailed response.

That is good to hear about the native firmware being very good for Ubiquiti and mikrotik. I put OpenWRT and/or DD-WRT support in the must have list because I am experienced with it on my Netgear R7000 and Linksys WRT1900ACS. I really like the value add and extendability of OpenWRT's software library; especially for things like bandwidth monitoring (by MAC).

I currently have Xfinity for internet but Google Fiber is coming soon to my area, would like to have a router that can take advantage of that when the time comes.

I am not exactly sure what my throughput requirements will be but I will require NAT and would be adding 2 APs (AC). Our house has 5 demanding users and about 20 devices. If I choose a router without USB storage support than I would add a NAS at some point. At typical peak usage might have 2 devices streaming netflix, 2 active gaming sessions, light torrenting and nightly NAS backups. What might be a good target for throughput requirements?

 

[TonyH]

Thank you for this detailed response.

That is good to hear about the native firmware being very good for Ubiquiti and mikrotik. I put OpenWRT and/or DD-WRT support in the must have list because I am experienced with it on my Netgear R7000 and Linksys WRT1900ACS. I really like the value add and extendability of OpenWRT's software library; especially for things like bandwidth monitoring (by MAC).

I currently have Xfinity for internet but Google Fiber is coming soon to my area, would like to have a router that can take advantage of that when the time comes.

I am not exactly sure what my throughput requirements will be but I will require NAT and would be adding 2 APs (AC). Our house has 5 demanding users and about 20 devices. If I choose a router without USB storage support than I would add a NAS at some point. At typical peak usage might have 2 devices streaming netflix, 2 active gaming sessions, light torrenting and nightly NAS backups. What might be a good target for throughput requirements?

You said non-negotiable requirement of 150.00 budget?!

 

[sirbrent]

You said non-negotiable requirement of 150.00 budget?!

Hahaha. Yes, I could give a little on that. Forgive me but I am coming from a background in high-end consumer wireless routers such as the Netgear R7000 and Linksys WRT1900AC. I am pushing the limits of these routers with my network set up at this time and really diving into OpenWRT these last few months. What is, in your opinion, the lowest reasonable budget for these features? I am hoping I can move to the next evolution of my home network without breaking the bank. The consumer routers I mentioned already have most of the features I want, I was assuming I could get the little extra I am looking for without a 3 fold increase in investment. Perhaps my logic is flawed.

 

[sfx2000]

If you do use openwrt and dd-wrt not all routers are baseless. Ubiquiti and mikrotik have good firmwares and do more than what those 3rd party firmwares do. You could also achieve the same using a PC and pfsense.

I think there is a business case for something like OP asks - take away the WiFi, and things get a bit easier - Marvell Armada 380/385 and a linkstreet soho switch would fit nicely, and OpenWRT would support that out of the box with little extra work.

 

[kvic]

Marvell Armada 380/385 and a linkstreet soho switch would fit nicely, and OpenWRT would support that out of the box with little extra work.

This gets a bit fun. My game plan will suggest OP to get three ER-X for total cost of $147 at MSRP.

Use one for main router. The other two configured as smart switches or routers (even more fun to play with..). Have the option to place all ports in one central location or IMO better distributed around your house.

Shipped with a modern FW and runs OpenWRT. You get 11 usable GbE ports for LANs. Dual WAN supported with excellent and improved load balance (as I heard) in 1.8.5 FW. 802.11ad.. sure.

If I were gaming one level up, I would let go Samba and OpenWRT on my routers..

 

[System Error Message]

when it comes to google fiber you will need either a very fast router or a PC based router or hardware acceleration. Currently no consumer router supports those speeds so dd-wrt, tomato, openwrt arent applicable. ubiquiti edgerouters can do it with hardware acceleration but when you add vlan and the fact that you want to run things on the router than that means no gigabit either.

You can actually use mikrotik with a linux server for adding features like UTM. This cant be done using mikrotik and ubiquiti as i have tried it, cant find a way to convert the traffic stream to snort for analysis on ubiquiti from lack of the software capability (the same restrictions will apply to openWRT too).

You can always get 6+ gigabit for PC based router, just get 2 Intel 2nd hand quad port NICs.

@kvic, he mentioned dual WAN, for that you need a router without a switch chip as most switch chips are 1Gb/s to CPU. So using an ER-X with switch isnt going to help. If the router has 4 CPU connected ports you can have 2 internet ports and 2 LAN ports using LACP however other than a PC based router the only other choice in reliably handling 2 gigabit WANs is the mikrotik CCR.

 

[kvic]

@kvic, he mentioned dual WAN, for that you need a router without a switch chip as most switch chips are 1Gb/s to CPU. So using an ER-X with switch isnt going to help. If the router has 4 CPU connected ports you can have 2 internet ports and 2 LAN ports using LACP however other than a PC based router the only other choice in reliably handling 2 gigabit WANs is the mikrotik CCR.

ER-X shall be fine with dual WANs of aggregated throughput ~500Mbps without HW NAT or ~1Gbps with HW NAT. We're talking about typical home internet use here. Peak high throughput rarely hit nor sustained for long. Otherwise, we shall budget more headroom into HW.

To continue with OP's planning...existing wireless routers can be re-purposed as AP and Entware-ng app servers (a large portion of what OpenWRT is). I would run DNSmasq with Adblock, OpenVPN and Transmission, for example. Other apps/services can also continue to run on the AP's.

As an aside, DNSmasq with 30k entries of malicious and ad domains consumes quite a bit of CPU on each request. 20 active users (a large family in-house, on the road and from remote homes) can keep a dual-core cortex-A9 happily busy.

 

[sirbrent]

Thanks for all the great feedback. I have spent the last few hours looking at Ubiquiti's offerings and they sound pretty awesome. I am leaning towards trying one of their routers and also their access points. I am dying to wire my house for multiple access points and remove my current wifi-routers from essential roles (for stability reasons). I am thinking I could get the ER-X or ER-Lite for a temporary router during the transition and then use it as a switch once I am able to invest in a router that will meet all the requirements I mentioned.

I am still a little confused about the throughput of the ER-X. I understand it will not come close to supporting 1Gb internet, my current internet offering is 150Mbps. What kind of throughput/performance might I experience in a scenario where I have connected 2 wired devices (desktop computer and media server) and two APs (max 7 simultaneously active wireless clients), with the router providing NAT and firewall for entire network. Would the throughput limitations mentioned in earlier posts apply to local transfers (eg. from desktop to media server)?

 

[System Error Message]

Google internet requires vlan config so i doubt the ER-X will do gigabit throughput with hardware acceleration. At the very least i dont think google uses PPPOE.
Still if its ubiquiti you're after avoid the ERL. The ER-X has a better CPU and flash than the ERL. If you really want ubiquiti router the ERP-8 and pro have 6+ gigabit ports.

Dont be fooled by the speed claims on ubiquiti edgerouter spreadsheets. Those speed dont apply for home use, they apply if you plan to use their routers like a switch.

 

[netwrks]

Thanks for all the great feedback. I have spent the last few hours looking at Ubiquiti's offerings and they sound pretty awesome. I am leaning towards trying one of their routers and also their access points. I am dying to wire my house for multiple access points and remove my current wifi-routers from essential roles (for stability reasons). I am thinking I could get the ER-X or ER-Lite for a temporary router during the transition and then use it as a switch once I am able to invest in a router that will meet all the requirements I mentioned.

I am still a little confused about the throughput of the ER-X. I understand it will not come close to supporting 1Gb internet, my current internet offering is 150Mbps. What kind of throughput/performance might I experience in a scenario where I have connected 2 wired devices (desktop computer and media server) and two APs (max 7 simultaneously active wireless clients), with the router providing NAT and firewall for entire network. Would the throughput limitations mentioned in earlier posts apply to local transfers (eg. from desktop to media server)?

I recently purchased 2 ERx SFP's for my home. Picked them up because the price point is amazing. This set up is replacing a UBNT PoE5 router and a Netgear GS108T managed switch. One is configured as the router, the other is set up as a switch. The ERX supports DDR RAM and a faster CPU's compared to the ER PoE5 / ERL.

I had two Cisco SFP's lying around, and used SFP ports to create a fiber uplink between the ERX router and ERX switch. I have bunch of stuff at home - 2 R7000's as AP's, one R7000 as an extender, - 2 4k tv's XBOX (is always in OPEN NAT) configured with port forwarding, chromecast, idevices, android phones, laptops, (work - i use production VPN client's) and personal laptops, voip phone - two printers - one wired one wireless) and no issues. Everything works great.

I don't lag on any devices, including an XBOX. I have a 250Mbps DL / 20Mbps UL at home, the ERX supports it no problem. My speedtests sometimes top out at 350'ishMbps, The ERX supports hardware offloading in the current version of firmware - v1.8.5. I also use QoS smartqueue to control the UPLOAD bufferbloat, which I could not successfully do, with the ERPoE5.

 

[System Error Message]

The edgerouters do fine in your environment, but not at the speeds that ubiquiti claims. layer 3 routing isnt NAT.

 

[sirbrent]

The edgerouters do fine in your environment, but not at the speeds that ubiquiti claims. layer 3 routing isnt NAT.

Perfect. I am still curious about the throughput being discussed. Is that referring to WAN<-->LAN specifically? Will that ceiling also apply to local transfers between the switch ports of an EdgeRouter?

 

[netwrks]

The edgerouters do fine in your environment, but not at the speeds that ubiquiti claims. layer 3 routing isnt NAT.

Got it! I'm quite familiar with routing and NAT...

 

[System Error Message]

There are 2 ways ports are connected, either via the switch or direct CPU connection. A switch means that all the ports on the switch connect to CPU at 1Gb/s most of the time (exception is for mikrotik RB3011, see block diagram). This means say you have 2 WAN ports, both CPU connected, you have 2 PCs connected to switched ports wanting to access internet and you have 2 gigabit WANs. The total that both PCs can use together is only 1Gb/s so this could mean that each PC only gets 500Mb/s. The problem worses if you have your WAN ports also on the switched ports as traffic has to travel to switch, than CPU than back to switch on that 1Gb/s bidirectional link.

On a router with CPU connected ports the LAN WAN limitation isnt there, it is totally relient on CPU performance but uses less CPU than a switched port. However LAN to LAN transfers if both ports are CPU connected will use some CPU whereas on a switch no CPU is used for LAN to LAN transfers.

Layer 3 routing is simply just using routes, you could have multiple IP networks and the speed is for when PC of 1 IP network communicates with PC on another network. The WAN LAN throughput that matters for homes is the NAT throughput and SNB measures that.

For CPU connected ports for almost any router even a cheapo consumer one, LAN to LAN transfers involve bridging or routing. Even the cheapo routers will do that at wirespeed (as in with the 2 ports not 5 as they have 4 port switch and 1 CPU connected port, so 2Gb/s max for typical 5 port consumer router).

 

[netwrks]

Perfect. I am still curious about the throughput being discussed. Is that referring to WAN<-->LAN specifically? Will that ceiling also apply to local transfers between the switch ports of an EdgeRouter?

I have not tested port to port speed, but you may want to pose that question on the Ubiquity forum. I'm sure someone has test results you are looking for.