Shop Router

[gmaister22]

Hello

I am running a shop that has 1 Office PC that acts as a Server for my Merchandising Software. Then i got 3 cashiers/POS, and couple more computers. In other words, 5-6 computers that are used for retail merchandising, which means a lot of network traffic. I also use CCTV DVR for my Security Cameras.


Right now i am using the VDSL modem/router that my provider provided me with, the speedport w 724v.
I of course use gigabit switches.

So my question is, upgrading to a better router to use in bridge mode with my speedport w 724v serving as just a modem, will make things faster or any better in any way? Or it wont affect anything that much?

 

[thiggins]

Faster for internet access or for local traffic? What are your internet service up/down speeds?

 

[gmaister22]

Faster local traffic, my current modem / router on its config page already says 49999/9999 ( i pay for 50/10mb connection). My internet speed is fine

With some reading i done, people also recommend pfsense...but they seem very biased towards pfsense and call all netgear/asus/tp-link Chinese junk, lol

 

[sfx2000]

When I saw the tag line, first thing that came to mind...

Seriously though - the Speedport might be good enough - if it's reliable, which is more important that overall speed - one is probably good to go with it.

And depending on the ISP and Service Level Agreements - letting them manage the device lets you focus on the business...

That being said - consumer gear shouldn't be in a business - esp. since you have Point of Sale Terminals (maybe even payment card support)...

If you do want to go to a discrete router - the Cisco RV320/RV325 is something to consider... not fancy, but they are robust.

 

[sfx2000]

With some reading i done, people also recommend pfsense...but they seem very biased towards pfsense and call all netgear/asus/tp-link Chinese junk, lol

pfSense is a great platform - but unless you do network support full time, it's not the first choice - and I wouldn't touch any consumer/home oriented router for the reasons I mentioned above...

 

[gmaister22]

When I saw the tag line, first thing that came to mind...

View attachment 8086
Seriously though - the Speedport might be good enough - if it's reliable, which is more important that overall speed - one is probably good to go with it.

And depending on the ISP and Service Level Agreements - letting them manage the device lets you focus on the business...

That being said - consumer gear shouldn't be in a business - esp. since you have Point of Sale Terminals (maybe even payment card support)...

If you do want to go to a discrete router - the Cisco RV320/RV325 is something to consider... not fancy, but they are robust.

The speedport as a modem is very good, as a router though, i am not sure, i feel like its bottlenecking the whole network.

This Speedport is a consumer router, it's what they give for Home or Office lines. This is why i want to replace it with something more...solid/premium/enterprise maybe.

We got 3 Verifone Credit Card Terminals too, yes. I was looking at something like the Asus RT AC68U (i have one at home) or anything else...people over at IRC recommended me pfsense, but, seems much hassle

So i am confused now

 

[gmaister22]

pfSense is a great platform - but unless you do network support full time, it's not the first choice - and I wouldn't touch any consumer/home oriented router for the reasons I mentioned above...

Yeah i want to install something and forget about it, managing the shop is already tough enough...

But, on the other hand, i have been using the speedport for like a year already without any issues, i just want to upgrade it, i feel like its bottlenecking my network speed/performance

 

[sfx2000]

The speedport as a modem is very good, as a router though, i am not sure, i feel like its bottlenecking the whole network.

This Speedport is a consumer router, it's what they give for Home or Office lines. This is why i want to replace it with something more...solid/premium/enterprise maybe.

We got 3 Verifone Credit Card Terminals too, yes. I was looking at something like the Asus RT AC68U (i have one at home) or anything else...people over at IRC recommended me pfsense, but, seems much hassle

Hmmm... I'm still thinking the RV325 to be honest if one wants to use a dedicated router - might also consider the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter or the Microtik hEX...

https://www.ubnt.com/edgemax/edgerouter-lite/

https://routerboard.com/RB750r2

Both are good quality, and more importantly, stable and secure...

The RT-AC68 series are nice, but for a business, I wouldn't put one in...

 

[gmaister22]

Hmmm... I'm still thinking the RV325 to be honest if one wants to use a dedicated router - might also consider the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter or the Microtik hEX...

https://www.ubnt.com/edgemax/edgerouter-lite/

https://routerboard.com/RB750r2

Both are good quality, and more importantly, stable and secure...

The RT-AC68 series are nice, but for a business, I wouldn't put one in...

Why what wrong with rt ac68 on business?

 

[sfx2000]

Why what wrong with rt ac68 on business?

It's not an appropriate device for something that has to handle payment cards - same with any home router/AP - don't get me wrong, it's a fine device with a great 3rd party community to support it, but it's not business class...

 

[gmaister22]

It's not an appropriate device for something that has to handle payment cards - same with any home router/AP - don't get me wrong, it's a fine device with a great 3rd party community to support it, but it's not business class...

So its all about security? also its not that huge shop, just 3 point of sale terminals....its not THAT massive data that go through per sec

 

[sfx2000]

So its all about security? also its not that huge shop, just 3 point of sale terminals....its not THAT massive data that go through per sec

Yes, it is...

It's not the number of bits and bytes, it's the value in them...

Uptime - priority
Security - priority

Netgear's consumer devices have been fairly broken over the last couple of weeks - one has to imaging that as popular as Asus is, they're under attack now, and if not, they're next... and they'll be broken as well.

Same goes for Linksys, D-Link, and many others...

 

[thiggins]

If the slow traffic is on Ethernet, the router has nothing to do with slowness. A gigabit switch can handle wire-speed between all its ports. You don't really have that many devices.

PoS terminals shouldn't be generating enough traffic to saturate a gigabit link. But your IP cameras could.

If I were to spend money on anything, it would be to replace the Gigabit switches with "smart" ones so you can look at port statistics. That would tell you where the potential bottlenecks are. It would also let you aggregate ports for more uplink bandwidth, if you did discover a bottleneck.

First step is to diagram your network and get an accurate inventory of everything on it and where it is connected. This might show obvious pinch points.

Another possibility is that 10/100 devices could be slowing down Gigabit devices. http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/lanwan-features/30212-when-flow-control-is-not-a-good-thing

 

[sfx2000]

It's a pretty similar scenario to a friend's gas station...

Ingress is a Netgear DSL gateway - breaks out into two LAN's from the GW (he has two WAN IP's - back office (and DVR) going into a 8 port managed switch, and the other WAN IP goes into a Cisco VPN router that handles the registers/pumps/etc...

There's separation between the two LAN's as required by his payment card processor for PCI compliance.