MikroTIk hardware for complicated home network

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

Hi!

I never been fan of mikrotik, but things changed recently when I saw my corporate network. I’m amazed how advance things can be so easy to setup.
My home network was simple few years ago, and than it starts expanding unpredictable :laughing: Here’s a brief overview of it:

As you can see there’s a one central server (called “Main server” on this diagram) which acts as router/accespoint/nat/vpn. It’s connected to Internet using 100/100 fiber connection with LTE as backup.
Routing is pretty complicated as for home network - there are four separated networks: general intranet for all trusted devices, backup nodes network, IoT devs. network and one for guest WLAN devices (not shown on diagram).
Server also contains custom DNS cache server directing some hosts to “Remote gateway/proxy” to access services like Netflix.
Speaking of network interfaces there are five:
• 2.4Ghz / 802.11n / USB (I don’t need anything more, it tops at 10GB/month)
• 5Ghz / 802.11n / PCIe
• Builtin GbE lan (connected to FTTH)
• USB 100Mb LAN (connected to “Cheap non-managed switch”)
• USB LTE modem


Unfortunately I can’t call that setup stable. The most problematic part is WiFi - it works, sometimes faster sometimes slower. Also routing is completely messy. I decided to upgrade WiFi card to 802.11ac but I found they’re not near being stable at linux in AP mode.

I decided to look through RouterBoard family to offload routing&wifi from server to proper hardware. Since I’m little tight on budget I wish to offload only some functions to mikrotik. I assumed following requirements:
• At least fast ethernet port for WAN
• Gigabit port for LAN (since server will be connected to it)
• Mini-PCIe slot for QCA9880-based card
• Builtin 2.4Ghz interface or mini-pci slot for it (USB-based WiFi card’s aren’t stable)
• USB for LTE modem (which is visible as USB-NIC)

Surprisingly I found … nothing. RB433L looked good before I figured out that 802.11ac is PCIe-only. RB912UAG-2HPnD will be neat choice but it lacks one extra RJ45.
Unfortunately RB800 is too much in terms of price & power consumption for me. I also think it’s overlooking for home network :wink:


Could you give me some tips or/and hardware recommendations?

2

hAP AC, also RB3011. See this thread

why do you need the QCA9880?

3

Uhm, I missed Czech MUM slides, thank you for that link.
Unfortunately I feel weird about new products: hAP is going to be an awesome product, powerful enough for even advanced home installations, but why it lacks antenna connectors? Sure, it’s possible to do some DIY losing the warranty but I just worried about range without that. Also the timing is little bit off - Q3 for 3x3 ac is a little bit late.
Anyway when I read through all slides I immediately interested in RB3011 until @nomis confirmed RB3011UiAS-2HnD-IN will be just RB3011UiAS-RM with 2.4Ghz card installed, so it’s impossible to get dual band setup (unless USB 2.4 radio is used).

Speaking in terms of QCA9880 I didn’t found anything else MT-compilant available as mini-PCIe card. There’s no other end-market solutions from Qualcomm and BCM isn’t supported for obvious reasons :wink: