Just purchased a Edgerouter lite and a unifi uap-ac. Not impressed with the uap-ac this far, especially for its price. The Edgerouter seems ok so far but I’m not devoted to it.
My main goals are:
-Ability to stream HD content from my plex server to 2-4 nodes in my home.
-complete wifi coverage of my home
-traffic shaping
-stability/reliability
Would a non-ac mikrotik setup handle this?
Thanks
If you are having stability problems with the uap-ac make sure you are not using 80mhz channel width. I have not experienced the same 80Mhz channel width issues with MKTK or Apple 802.11ac AP’s.
Without knowing the layout/construction methods/size of your home/rf environment and your throughput expectations it’s pretty hard to say weather any product UBNT or MKTK makes will meet your needs if you are trying to use a single AP to cover an entire residence.
I use both UBNT and MKTK routers and I actively use both their wifi products. The Edgerouter Lite is a nice product especially when considering the WAN->LAN and ipsec throughput per $$$ ratio. The UAP-AC isn’t the greatest value in my opinion when you consider the issues with 80Mz wide channels.
What you are trying to achieve should not be an issue with either companies products when set up properly.
Anyone care to offer some advice on gear selection?
Personally I am a huge Ubiquiti fan… except for their routers… Definitely have chosen MikroTik routers over theirs. I still however love their switches, Unifi, and Video products.
I wasn’t that impressed with the uap-ac. And wasn’t that impressed with their unifi software either. The uap-AC got very, very hot (uncomfortable to hold) and that was just it sitting idle. No tellin how hot it gets under a load.
Would one of mikrotik’s outdoor AC access points be a wiser choice for hd streaming? Or will the RB2011UiAS-2HnD-IN
likely be fast enough for 2 or 3 hd streams? Also, is there a winbox client for OS X?
RB951-2HnD over 100mbps on wireless, 1W of power and if you can solder you can put 2 external antennas for 3 dbi more. Signal was very good through 2 concrete walls and usable with 3 walls. No other router can claim that 
Normally because of the impedance mismatch by using two antennas the RF output stage will be either overdriven by the mismatch or the radiated power reduced unless you just happen to be lucky that the connection leads + antennas present a RF load load near to the design impedance.
I understand from reading on the Ubiquiti forums that heat is an issue with those AC units. I have deployed a mixture of indoor and outdoor regular Unifi units and love them. Also I actually really like the software platform as well. I have found that have a Mikrotik router base and then ubiquiti switches and wifi have worked well for us. I would never touch an EdgeRouter though, pile of crap. You could never pry my Tik from me.
Any benefit to getting the gigabit version over the other?
So is the RB951-2HnD a full blown router? I just thought it was a AP, hence my question regarding the gigabit ports. So would the RB951-2HnD be a better choice than the RB2011UiAS-2HnD-IN?
No. Essentially they are the same but 2011 has more peripherals so it’s better over 951.
thanks guys. ended up with the RB2011UiAS-2HnD-IN. have it hooked up and love it so far. however, i still get some buffering when streaming a 15GB file from my plex server. shouldn’t i have more than enough bandwidth? when monitoring the network traffic leaving my server it’s only, at max, 2MBytes/sec.
Good choice. The traffic goes over wires or wifi? If by wires, does it pass over bridge or switch? What says profiler?
currently it’s all wifi. out of a mac mini, into a roku stick running plex client. i do plan on running wire for the mini in the future, but that may be a while before i get to it. what is the router rated at? its dual chain… so 300Mbit? both my mac mini and macbook air are reporting a 144Mbit connection.
That would be the case. Check the signal quality when streaming video.
signal quality is strong. neither device is over 6 ft from the router. so i should have more than enough bandwidth, correct? i thought that perhaps the rook was the culprit, however even streaming plex to my macbook air, it buffers. i’m not understanding the problem.
How long is the video for 15GB?
What kind of Mac Mini is it?
From looking at this it sounds like maybe your video is a BluRay rip and it could be the drive speed isn’t keeping up with feeding to the CPU, the CPU may not be transcoding it fast enough to feed it out.
Also what signal strength is at each device? you say strong but also that devices are less than 6’ away. This probably indicates that unless your turned the power down on your mikrotik then the signal strength is too strong. Try turning the power to manual and down to 17dBm or even 10, you may find your devices still show full signal bars but you get more usable speed out of the radio link.
144Mbps seems to be 20Mhz channel (no extension without Short Guard Interval (look at the registration tab on the wireless section in winbox and in recent versions (with wireless FP Package) it shows the details of the type of connection.
300Mbps is the radio data rate and actual usable data rate is below this.
Also have you done a wireless scan? Radios share the space (partly what the guard interval does) and so having other radios in the area on the same frequency will slow down your actual throughput.
With the devices that close can you put at least one onto cable into the router? Wifi with both devices while so close seems a waste when a short cable cost a couple of bucks. The wifi currently has to take the data from your mac mini to the AP, then from the AP send it out to the Roku, Then pass back the ACK on that data, so the flow of data across the wireless is happening twice.
Some things to try here.
Regards
Alexander
the 15GB vid is at least 2hrs. in length. so that should be a paltry 125MB/minute or 2.08MB/sec (16.66Mbit/sec). That should be easily achieved, even on the lesser 144Mbit connection… right?
late 2012 mac mini w/ a 500GB SSD
yes, it’s a bluray rip, however when streaming file the only part of the mkv that is being transcoded is the audio is transcoded to aac. this is done very quickly and the transcoding process is throttled back. the mini is strong enough to fully transcode if need be, i’ve monitored this as well.
heres the signal strength for some of the devices currently connected.
i’ve attempted to restrict it to N only and tried to change the width to 40mhz. doesn’t look like the N only stuck but perhaps the 40mhz did? scan taken via mac’s built in scan tool. my network is Cobb’s Wifi
-for now, it will all remain wireless. i do plan on moving my gear to a closet and then running a few runs of cat5 out of the closet to a couple spots in the house. but for a good while it will be wireless.
The signal is definitely too strong. You should have around -50 at ap and at client, not around -35. Lower the power of all devices accordingly. Also, use channel 6 instead 1 and both preambles.
where do i lower the strength at? i’ve looked but don’t see it. also, how do you know what channel 6 is? the 6th one down from top in list? it simply lists the freqs. what are the preambles, and where would i find them? sorry for my ignorance, I’m a nerd in training.
(edit)- i found the power adjustment, but after setting it to manual and then all rates being set to 17db i receive the following message when attempting to apply the setting.
Couldn’t change Interface - tx-power-mode not supported (6)
(edit2) - ended up using the “all rates fixed” mode as it and “default” are the only two that will take. Also, found the preamble mode and “both” was already selected.
(edit3) - updated firmware and routeros to the latest releases. also enable wireless-fp… no difference.