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kzendra
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New Router / WiFi

Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:31 pm

Hi all
I have CRS125-24G-1S which is dying - a bit from old age, but it got finished by power outage yesterday (power surge from a industrial location near by kicked large portion of the town in darkness) so I have ports going down and up all over the place... Besides that, I'd add wifi on that side of my house as it's not covered now.

Now I need to get a new one so I need advice about the course I should take:
1. standalone switch + standalone router + standalone wifi (need 24 LAN ports)
2. All in one solution like CRS125-24G-1S-2HnD-IN - are there extensions for rack mount and is there a way to get antena out of network cabinet as wifi signal will be blocked inside?

I'm thinking that it would be good to have PoE output as I have 2 more WiFi AP which I'd in time replace with devices that can be powered in such way, but that would require one more device as no CRS has PoE ports or?

For admins / moderators, if this post is in wrong place, please move it to where it belongs :-)
 
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mkx
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Re: New Router / WiFi

Thu Mar 11, 2021 5:51 pm

Commenting on "all in one" possibilities: mikrotik is listing it's products in 3 distinct lines: 1) ethernet switches, 2) ethernet routers and 3) wireless for home and office.

Ethernet routers: none of models has more than 12 (or 13) ethernet ports, so this category won't cut.
Wireless for home and office: ditto
Ethernet switches: there are a couple of CRS1xx have wireless as well. But these models are based on old hardware which means that wireless is limited to lower rates and CPU is slow (and thus offers low routing performance).

Which means you'll have to get at least 2 devices (if not 3). One possibility is to get a router/switch combo and separate AP (offers better flexibility for optimum placement). As already mentioned, devices from "ethernet routers" category offer too little ethernet ports (and are not great at wire-speed L2 forwarding), while switches generally lack routing capacity. However, there's a light in the distance (hopefully it's not train coming): ROS v7 will offer HW offload of routing on a few select CRS3xx models, current status of HW supported is here. CRS326-24S+2Q+ is listed and offers required number of ports. Not exactly replacement for CRS125 though as it only offers SFP+ interfaces (so you'd need a number of S-RJ modules which come with a price tag and their share of problems). Not cheap as well.

Another possibility is to get a router/AP combo, some devices are decent wireless APs and have some routing capacity at the same time (most notably hAP ac2 and hAP ac3), depending on routing capacity required (if your CRS125 was enough so far, then hAP ac2 or hAP ac3 would suffice as well). hAP ac2 is small enough that you can place on top of cabinet, to reduce number of wires you could configure it as a router-on-a-stick (single ethernet cable with multiple VLANs carrying both WAN and number of LANs) and use RBGPOE as PoE injector (if your new switch won't support PoE out that is).
And add a switch to it, some have PoE out capability, some support standard 802.3 af/at PoE standard.
 
mada3k
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Re: New Router / WiFi

Sat Mar 13, 2021 10:15 am

All-in-one has severe drawbacks. WiFi gets old. Routing/firewall performance needs upgrades with faster connections. Software needs more storage. Then you you have to change the whole device. A good switch lasts for years.
 
kzendra
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Re: New Router / WiFi

Sat Mar 13, 2021 2:23 pm

As I mentioned, now I have old CRS which is good as router / switch. I do not need nigh routing power as it's for a home network - it's a big house, but sill a house and we use internet for email and reading news.
Due to size and the fact that I have taken LAN connection to each room (some have up to 4), I need 24 port (26 would be charm, but)...

Right now I'm more or less inclined to place another CRS in cabinet and standalone WiFi device in my studdy which is on the other side of the wall (wave 3 LAN cables in there)

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