RB2011 vs hAP-ac2 (for parents)?

I’m trying to upgrade the (mostly wireless) network at my parents’ home nearby. I’m wanting to include a bridge link over Wireguard between the two networks and I’m planning to install one of my NAS boxes there, both for backups of their computer data (“Backups? What are backups?”) as well as an offsite backup destination for my own most critical data. I have T-Mobile 5G data service active at both locations (Download speed 125+ Mbps, Upload speed ~20 Mbps) with a static IP on my end (business class service). Aside from my remote data archiving (which I’ll schedule during the wee hours), their major data usage is streaming Astros games and Fox News. However, Dad has a habit of visiting chancy web sites and clicking on every email he receives; I’ve already had to clean up the mess more than once. So I’d like to have the capability to at least block some of the worst offenders.

I’m still cleaning up from Hurricane Beryl and I’m going to have to repair or replace my roof (and I don’t have insurance…ouch!), so I’m not buying new equipment. What I have available to repurpose is a hAP-ac2 and an RB2011 with 2.4 GHz Wi-fi. Which of those units is best suited to be the main gateway router at their place? The other will become a managed switch/access point.

Sorry to hear about damage to your house. So if you are going to repurpose those devices then I would recommend you to use hAP ac2 as your router and RB2011 as your switch.

hAP ac2 is much more powerful device. RB2011 is discontinued and L009 is replacement for it. Never had RB2011 but there are two switch chips on it, one for gigabit ports and one for fast ethernet ports.

So be careful because traffic going from gigabit port to fast ethernet port must pass trough CPU. I know that can be a problem on RB4011 so i believe it’s a problem on RB2011.

Someone will correct me if I’m wrong.

RB2011 doesn’t have the same problem as 4011 does … it’s a problem when there are VLANs in the mix … and it’s not a problem on RB2011 because bridge is not HW offloaded to switch chips.

The main reason I was leaning towards using the RB2011 was because of the very limited flash RAM on the hAP-ac2. I am planning to configure some VLANs, but I haven’t done so yet.
My main router at the house is (currently) an RB4011. Are there problems with it that I should be aware of?

@mkx explained it here: http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/possible-problem-with-vlan/173331/1

I’m running hAP ac2 on 7.15.3 without a problem. Wireguard, UPS package, there is no much storage left but i think you will not have any problem. Your setup is quite simple.