Hi everyone,
My R7000 is starting to get a bit glitchy (on both FreshTomato and the stock FW) and with my wife and I both working from home for the next several months I'd like to get something to replace it soon before the problems get worse. My setup is pretty simple: I have a 300/300 FiOS connection with the ONT feeding ethernet into my router's WAN port. In terms of devices, I have a USB hard drive plugged into the router, along with a desktop through ethernet; everything else is on WiFi - four laptops, a Roku, a Chromecast, a Google Home, two WiFi cameras, two smartphones, a TV, and a printer. Everything but the cameras and the printer is on the 5 GHz band. My apartment is 1200 sq ft, and the router is relatively centrally located - I don't have any range issues. I get the full 300/300 speed on 5 GHz, 2.4 GHz is a lot more congested and I test around ~40 Mbps after adjusting my channel and some advanced settings for interference mitigation (on FreshTomato). I don't know if my 2.4 GHz speeds would be better on stock firmware because I couldn't maintain a stable 5 GHz connection on it so didn't use it long.
I don't have a need for more than the 300 Mbps of my internet speed, so I think any AC1200 and up device is fast enough for me, and would likely have enough range too. What I'm looking for is stability and durability - I don't want to pay $100 for another router that dies after a couple of years, which from reviews it seems most of the consumer routers do. Browsing through threads here and on other forums I've seen suggestions to move to SMB networking gear - separate routers and APs, from Ubiquiti or Mikrotik or other brands. So I have some questions:
1) First, am I on the right track? Is it true that the SMB-focused gear will last a lot longer? And give me reliable uptime without needing restarts etc? Again my main concern is stability and long-lasting equipment - I'd happily keep using the R7000 if it kept working in a stable manner.
2) I know that a setup like this won't be nearly as plug and play as a consumer router. I'm not totally new to networking, having run various flavors of Tomato and DD-WRT on past routers, and I'm comfortable with assigning IP addresses, forwarding ports, choosing wireless channels, etc. That's about as deep as I've gotten - will I be totally out of my depth with one of these options? I'm comfortable following tutorials online, and using a command line if need be - but I'm worried about being overwhelmed.
3) If I do proceed down this path, what exactly would I need to buy? I assume a router (something like a Mikrotik Hex) and then a separate AC1200+ AP? Specific recommendations would be great - I'm looking to stay low in price as I don't believe I need very advanced functionality for my setup.
4) Would it be a mistake to get something like a Mikrotik hAP ac2? Seems like it's substantially cheaper than buying two separate devices. How much would I miss the AC wave 2 features on something like this for my usage?
5) Is there a general tutotial somewhere for a basic setup like this?
Thanks for any advice!
My R7000 is starting to get a bit glitchy (on both FreshTomato and the stock FW) and with my wife and I both working from home for the next several months I'd like to get something to replace it soon before the problems get worse. My setup is pretty simple: I have a 300/300 FiOS connection with the ONT feeding ethernet into my router's WAN port. In terms of devices, I have a USB hard drive plugged into the router, along with a desktop through ethernet; everything else is on WiFi - four laptops, a Roku, a Chromecast, a Google Home, two WiFi cameras, two smartphones, a TV, and a printer. Everything but the cameras and the printer is on the 5 GHz band. My apartment is 1200 sq ft, and the router is relatively centrally located - I don't have any range issues. I get the full 300/300 speed on 5 GHz, 2.4 GHz is a lot more congested and I test around ~40 Mbps after adjusting my channel and some advanced settings for interference mitigation (on FreshTomato). I don't know if my 2.4 GHz speeds would be better on stock firmware because I couldn't maintain a stable 5 GHz connection on it so didn't use it long.
I don't have a need for more than the 300 Mbps of my internet speed, so I think any AC1200 and up device is fast enough for me, and would likely have enough range too. What I'm looking for is stability and durability - I don't want to pay $100 for another router that dies after a couple of years, which from reviews it seems most of the consumer routers do. Browsing through threads here and on other forums I've seen suggestions to move to SMB networking gear - separate routers and APs, from Ubiquiti or Mikrotik or other brands. So I have some questions:
1) First, am I on the right track? Is it true that the SMB-focused gear will last a lot longer? And give me reliable uptime without needing restarts etc? Again my main concern is stability and long-lasting equipment - I'd happily keep using the R7000 if it kept working in a stable manner.
2) I know that a setup like this won't be nearly as plug and play as a consumer router. I'm not totally new to networking, having run various flavors of Tomato and DD-WRT on past routers, and I'm comfortable with assigning IP addresses, forwarding ports, choosing wireless channels, etc. That's about as deep as I've gotten - will I be totally out of my depth with one of these options? I'm comfortable following tutorials online, and using a command line if need be - but I'm worried about being overwhelmed.
3) If I do proceed down this path, what exactly would I need to buy? I assume a router (something like a Mikrotik Hex) and then a separate AC1200+ AP? Specific recommendations would be great - I'm looking to stay low in price as I don't believe I need very advanced functionality for my setup.
4) Would it be a mistake to get something like a Mikrotik hAP ac2? Seems like it's substantially cheaper than buying two separate devices. How much would I miss the AC wave 2 features on something like this for my usage?
5) Is there a general tutotial somewhere for a basic setup like this?
Thanks for any advice!