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.
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.
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.
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+
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.