I have a home network consisting of several raspberry pis, a Roku, and a total of 4 laptops and smartphones.
Currently, I have the ISP provided router/modem in bridge mode which I’ll refer to as my modem. This is connected to my own ASUS wireless router/Access Point which I’ll refer to as my access point (AP). The AP supports about 900Mbps. I’m fine with this bottleneck for now as I intend to upgrade my AP in the future
My goal here is to purchase a router that supports the 1.5Gbps that’s coming from my ISP’s modem. I’d like to use it to set up a VLAN and tinker with, with the ability to connect 4 devices in addition to my access point.
The problem I’m facing is that I haven’t yet found a router that’s <$200CAD which supports 1.5Gbps. There are probably brands I’m unaware of, so would you fine folks be able to recommend me a router?
Are you looking for a wireless router, or an ethernet router? Either way, look at MikroTik. Iirc, they have few cheaper options with a 2.5g sfp cage.
If you can swing it, the RB5009U is a great one.
I’m looking for an Ethernet router which I’d connect a wireless access point to for WiFi.
Thanks for the recommendation. It’s a bit out of my price range but sfp might be an issue for my since my modem and Ap don’t have that port.
An sfp is just an interface type for a card that can house various ports, like a 2.5g ethernet port.
The L009 should fit your needs, though.
Thank you, that looks like a great option.
Adding a 2.5g card to a PC it’s the way to go. I put one in my mini 1l PC and run pfsense on it.
Mikrotik is awesome. They are super powerful and super flexible.
But they don’t hold your hand, and have a hell of a learning curve.
Luckily, the quick-set default config thing is actually decent these days. So it’s easy enough to get a basic setup going, then figure out how the bridge works, vlan tagging, where to add IPs, DHCP settings, DNS whatevers and all that.
It took me about 6 run through of setting it up before I stopped locking myself out accidentally! Probably another 6 before I was confident setting up a new vlan with routing/DHCP/etc.
Just be aware that there are a lot of popular tutorials out there based on older versions of the software, and older ways of doing things. Look for videos from 2022+
SFP is something like a port for ports - you buy an SFP module based on what port you need, so you can just buy a network device with SFP cages that can handle your required speed and then pick a combination of Ethernet / optical SFP modules that match your needs. But the modules aren’t exactly cheap, even the Ethernet ones.
Oh, I see. I appreciate the explanation.