Is getting the hap ax2 a 'no brainer' over the hex s 2025? Ignoring the price differences and wifi, is there anything the hex s 2025 does better?
I currently have 400 mbps service and my edgerouter-x speeds are capping at ~ 280 mbps even with everything but my laptop disconnected from it. 2 vlans, HW offloading is on, I have no QoS, DPI, or VPN setup. I picked up a hex s 2025 and the WinBox default setup is already netting me 400 mbps speeds, but I have yet to add the vlans, and 1 ip address redirection. I also plan to upgrade to 1gig service, hence why I am replacing the ER-X.
So if you go with ER-X, what is the question for? ER-X has no WiFi, so you do not need it, therefore hAP AX2, having WiFi interface,s does not give you any advantage over hEX .
Maybe you should consider RB5009?
I am moving from ER-X to Hex S 2025 or AX2. I do not need wifi.
For 1 gig internet service, 2 vlans, 1 IP address re-direction (sorry, don't know the terminology), would the AX2 provide any benefit over the Hex S 2025?
The hAP AX2 is much faster than the hEX S. To get all out of your internet speed, I would choose hAP AX2 over hEX S. It all depends on the benefits (wireless/USB) and the price difference.
What you describe is your basic default config without frills. Neither port forwarding nor vlans will have any measurable impact on your performance.
In this configuration both devices will be happy at 1Gbps. So if you’re sure this is all you’re after, you’ve chosen appropriately.
You can even throw in vpn for remote access to the things that are going to work fine.
I personally think that the ax2 is a nicer home device with its included wifi (if only as a backup for now,) but there is no hard reason for me to suggest that you get one.
I would really welcome an update if/when you make your choice.
Many people ask similar questions, and it would be really helpful for them to see stories that are concluded.
What was your choice eventually? Was it altogether satisfactory? What would you suggest for others, if anything? - these are things everyone looks for. If you have the time, please write an update
Edit: I this was referring to hAP ac² instead of the hAP ax², and also I was getting the two hAP features confused in my head. The hAP ac² is Flash constrained but has better switch support in ROS than the hAP ax².
if you are being limited to 280 mbps on the ER-X, something you are doing is disabling hw offload.
If you upload your config to the Ubiquiti forum, someone can probably determine what it is, but it may be a feature you need, and you may be hitting the limits of what is possible on the ER-X.
I have neither of the MikroTik routers you are considering.
The biggest disadvantage of the hAP ac² is that is has only 16MB of flash, and 128MB of RAM (128 is probably sufficient for home use, where you won't be running BGP etc., but 16MB flash will be more of a concern with ROS features and upgrading). For comparison, the ER-X has 256MB for flash and 256MB of RAM.
The switch features in the hAP ac² are more limited than either the HEX S (original or 2025 refresh) or the ER-X. With current ROS, the bridge won't be HW offloaded, and I am not sure it fhe switch is capable of vlan offloading. (Edit: I was thinking of hAP ax² which uses the IPQ-6010 SoC and the /interface switch section doesn't support vlans on that chip. The hAP ac² has an Atheros8327 embedded in the Soc, and that does support HW assisted vlans via the /interface switch section.) So if you are going to have multiple ports in mutilple vlans, intra-vlan traffic will still be processed by the CPU, so that could affect performance.
The advantaged of the hAP ac² are the CPU(s).
I am not sure what you mean by "ip address redirection". If you mean NAT?
If you want to do more than what a consumer home router does, then neither the hAP ac² or the Hex S 2025 is going to be able to fully utilize a 1 Gbps circuit, especially if doing QoS or Policy Based Routing (ip firewall mangle). If you can live with the 16GB of flash on the hAP ac²
You could use your ER-X as a vlan-aware switch (there is evne a setup wizard to help configure it). The hAP ac² along with the ER-X as a switch should work well together.
To recap:
Hex S (2025) (E60iUGS) $69 has SFP cage, so 6 interfaces. 5 ethernet+SFP, BUT it is a bit "tight" for 1 Gbps (can do it no problem for most simple configurations, but has not much "slack").
Hap Ax2 $99 has wifi and 5 ethernet ports and is faster.
Since usually the ISP provide an ONT device that converts fiber to ethernet, the SFP port of the hex S won't be used for the WAN side (putting a "stove", like ethernet SFP modules usually are, in a small passive cooled device is not IMHO a very good idea, while an optical module or a DAC cable would do) , so it would be essentially unused (unless you can attach fiber directly to it) and anyway if you add a SFP you would spend more money.
The Ax2 (with radios off) is a faster router, and has double RAM, 1 Gb vs. 512 Mb (storage is the same, 128 Mb).
For $30 difference I would go for the Ax2, as it is a more flexible device, that in the future you can reuse as simple AP, but that when you will have 1 Gbps fiber can manage the routing more comfortably than the Hex S.
For example, you can do HW-offloaded VLANs on hEX but not on the hAP ax^2.
If you just want to do the Inter-VLAN routing and use the device as a router+firewall, not as a switch, I would go with hAP ax^2. But if you plan to use IPSec tunnel, have in mind that hEX has hw-accelerated IPSec.
I was able to figure out why the ER-X was limited - there was an 'advanced queue' set up but it wasn't clearly shown in the GUI. I chanced upon it when reviewing the backup configuration file and seeing an entry. After deleting it, I'm now getting ~ 450 mbps speedtest with my 400 mbps service (spectrum sets the service a little higher than plan).
So now I really don't need the hex s 2025, nor make a decision between it and the hap AX2 though I was leaning towards the AX2 due to better CPU speed.
I kept the ER-X after finding a remnant 'Advanced Queueing' entry. It was hidden and would not show that HW offloading was disabled.
I was leaning towards the AX2 thinking that the faster cpu would give me faster throughput in case my configuration wouldn't be able to use Mikortik's version of hw offloading.
Well, after you mentioned it, I see I somehow misread. So all I wrote about the flash and RAM of the hAP ac² do not apply to the hAP ax² which has 128GB flash and 1GB RAM, plus a better CPU. But the IPQ-6010 switch isn't currently on the HW offload list in ROS, and I don't know if the switch can support vlan offloading. But the hAP ax² is clearly a winner over the hAP ac² unless the USB is needed.