Hi,
Apologies in advance for my questions, however I’ve been pointed to Mikrotik as the definite answer to all my problems when it comes to my home router requirements from a couple of advocates.
As someone more from a *nix background rather than layer2 I would appreciate some perspective on what options I should consider when looking for a Mikrotik router to fit my requirements.
My setup - 2x FTTC links at home, each doing 80mbit down 20mbit up both as routers (not bridges), default gateway is going through one of these links whilst I static-route my ‘exceptions’ via the other line with of course the option to swing my default gw if I had a ISP issue, my current router is a Linksys E3200 running dd-wrt, each uplink via a separate VLAN, there’s of course some NATting, fw rules, etc. happening as well
My issue - When I start hammering one link via this gear (not p2p) my other link start seeing packet-loss, the old E3200 I have’s load average shoots up so I assume the CPU is just struggling keeping up. I’ve made things much better by dropping QoS alltogether on the router which has alleviated my immediate concerns, however it looks like I should be shopping for something better/faster.
So - I’m looking for something that can at least handle 2x80mbit, let’s assume ~160mbit of traffic, attached to a local gigE LAN which I would assume would be able to handle the same - the traffic is on average around ~300 connections, mostly TCP and connection tracked, a would-be-nice would be playing with QoS if the CPU could handle it. From a ports perspective my minmum would be 3 GigE ports (ISP1, ISP2, LAN), I would also like to cater (if possible) for expansion to around 2x200mbit downlinks at some future date without replacing the router.
On to my questions - somebody recommended the RB493G to me but the same questions apply to any of the other Mikrotik products,
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I understand that the RB493G actually consists of two switches across some indicated ports which brings down the theoretical maximum throughputs, given the setup described above would you separate the uplinks via one switch and the LAN on the other (with separate VLANs of course), or if not, how would you go about these restrictions?
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Again, my layer2 knowledge is rather limited, however from the throughput page on the RB493G specs most people’s ethernet frame size is around ~1518 bytes, is there a particular reason the distinction is made with regards to throughput and smaller framesizes rather than larger? Is it that typical to see smaller than ~1518 byte frames in a TCP/IP environment?
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Throughput - Assuming that I will be utilising IP Firewall as well as Connection Tracking in a routed environment and assuming 1518 byte frames, from the RB493G (as an example) I can apparently expect 823.36Mbps, given that this was done in optimal conditions, what real-world throughput can I expect given the situation described above of mostly TCP traffic, what knock-on-effect will Firewall rules & NAT have as an example to these numbers? How does the 2-switch nature of the RB493G play a role in this circumstance?
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Cheeky last question - why do I struggle to get Mikrotik reviews online? I’m surprised to even find more dd-wrt/openwrt ‘reviews’ online, any pointers on where to look just so I can be better informed from a source other than the company’s website?
Many thanks!
E