Stable wired router for 1Gbps Internet

Associate
Joined
1 Mar 2007
Posts
350
Location
Bristol, UK
Looking for a stable router to hold my FTTP connection. I've currently got the edgerouter x but its dropped out once and is ultra complicated for me. Also tried the tp link R600VPN but this couldn't reach over 730Mbps. Now sending back a Linksys LRT224 because it was causing even more problems and even that wouldn't max out the speed. Which is mad considering the edgerouter x is the cheapest.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2002
Posts
7,177
The ER-X can’t route symmetrical gigabit WAN, but that aside, what exactly is ‘ultra complicated’ about it and what were you doing? Understanding that is probably key to where this goes other than someone saying something like ‘buy xyz’ and xyz will be something horrible that looks like it fell out of a transformers exhaust port.
 
Associate
Joined
31 Aug 2017
Posts
2,209
The X is very easy to use, at least for most tasks.
Ok there is a lot more to it if your wanting to use advanced stuff but its about as easy as it gets imho.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
1 Mar 2007
Posts
350
Location
Bristol, UK
The x is good yes and I have found a lot of help online with setting things up, but I'd rather have something more gui orientated than cli. Plus it restarted once and its only been up a week. One negative is it loses the log everytime it restarts. But out of the 3 routers I've tried the x gets upto 1.1Gbps on fast.com where as the others struggle over 700 for some reason.
 
Associate
Joined
31 Aug 2017
Posts
2,209
I have almost never dropped to the cli, what are you needing it to do?
I have mine hooked up via pppoe to a draytek modem, ok no vlans the now but will be doing some partitioning soon - FW is fine as well.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2002
Posts
7,177
Again, what specifically are you doing that requires you to use CLI? It’s obviously something that really needs to be mentioned in your op. As to logging, you’ll find all consumer grade routers log to RAM, they all loose logs when power cycled, you can run an external logging server if you want. The speed statement is interesting, the router has a single 1Gbit link for WAN to LAN, that’s 1000/0 or 500/500 etc. It really can’t ever do more than 1Gbit in any direction, and can only get close to that if you are only moving traffic in one direction.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Apr 2007
Posts
13,456
I was under the impression that the X wasn't fast enough for FTTP top speeds and that the Edgerouter 4 was required.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Jul 2005
Posts
19,208
Location
Norfolk, South Scotland
I was under the impression that the X wasn't fast enough for FTTP top speeds and that the Edgerouter 4 was required.

Why? It’s rated at 1Gbps on 1518 byte packets. Which is the same as the USG-3P and I’ve got loads of those running 900/130 FTTP very happily. Remember the EdgeRouter doesn’t have the IPS/IDS red herring to apparently slow it down.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Jul 2005
Posts
19,208
Location
Norfolk, South Scotland
The speed statement is interesting, the router has a single 1Gbit link for WAN to LAN, that’s 1000/0 or 500/500 etc. It really can’t ever do more than 1Gbit in any direction, and can only get close to that if you are only moving traffic in one direction.

I’m confused by this statement. Are you saying there is something crippling the ER-X’s WAN port? As far as I know it’s a full 1GbE port and can handle 1Gbps full duplex. Any port on the ER-X can run as WAN so is there a chipset limitation that cripples the designated WAN port?
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2002
Posts
7,177
I’m confused by this statement. Are you saying there is something crippling the ER-X’s WAN port? As far as I know it’s a full 1GbE port and can handle 1Gbps full duplex. Any port on the ER-X can run as WAN so is there a chipset limitation that cripples the designated WAN port?

It’s been a thing for a long time, many reports in the usual places of ER-X not living up to the data sheets suggestion, then someone figured out why.

https://kazoo.ga/re-visit-the-switch-in-edgerouter-x/
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2002
Posts
7,177
It's an inexpensive 5? y/o edge router, it is unlikely to be a significant issue for most gigabit services in the UK (at present), unless it's a symmetrical gigabit service and the user anticipates saturating both directions at the same time regularly. I would still recommend the ER-X for anything sub 500Mbit happily and anything above with a minor caveat that it can't do symmetrical, but for OR FTTP it's near enough.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
1 Mar 2007
Posts
350
Location
Bristol, UK
I had to use CLI in the beginning for something to do with ipsec I think and something else because I wasn't getting full speed. And I used CLI to setup upnp2. I've noticed I'm on old firmware so I'll update that when I finish work
 
Soldato
Joined
7 Jun 2020
Posts
3,115
Location
-
Just use an old PC if you have one, and just throw a Intel NIC in it and run OPNSense.
I recommend the i340-T4 NIC you can probably get ahold of a used one for quite cheap (£20-£30).
I have it paired with a i3-2120 server, it doesn't go past 30% CPU usage like ever...
That's what I have for my setup with Vodafone's Gigafast, it runs symmetric 900Mbit no issues ;)
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2002
Posts
7,177
Just use an old PC if you have one, and just throw a Intel NIC in it and run OPNSense.
I recommend the i340-T4 NIC you can probably get ahold of a used one for quite cheap (£20-£30).
I have it paired with a i3-2120 server, it doesn't go past 30% CPU usage like ever...
That's what I have for my setup with Vodafone's Gigafast, it runs symmetric 900Mbit no issues ;)

While some won't mind, it's circa £47/yr in power to run an i3 2120 24/7 (based on idle 33.8w and 16p/Kwh - reality is likely worse under BSD & load as my R210-II pulled more). Also the NC365T is generally cheaper, HP branded and not currently targeted by the fakers unlike the intel branded stuff, but it'll NAT symmetrical gigabit easily :)
 
Soldato
Joined
7 Jun 2020
Posts
3,115
Location
-
While some won't mind, it's circa £47/yr in power to run an i3 2120 24/7 (based on idle 33.8w and 16p/Kwh - reality is likely worse under BSD & load as my R210-II pulled more). Also the NC365T is generally cheaper, HP branded and not currently targeted by the fakers unlike the intel branded stuff, but it'll NAT symmetrical gigabit easily :)

Yeah it was just to give an idea of what sort of CPU performance would suffice, I just used an existing PC I had. If anyone was to get new hardware there's definitely better alternatives that use much less power that's for sure :p
 
Associate
Joined
31 Aug 2017
Posts
2,209
While some won't mind, it's circa £47/yr in power to run an i3 2120 24/7 (based on idle 33.8w and 16p/Kwh - reality is likely worse under BSD & load as my R210-II pulled more). Also the NC365T is generally cheaper, HP branded and not currently targeted by the fakers unlike the intel branded stuff, but it'll NAT symmetrical gigabit easily :)

Yep this is what i was doing i had a big server and various instances running off it, was chewing 250w and making a right racket - i also used a pc and a microserver but eventually migrated towards the X and a Xu4 for pihole (overpowered but hey)
Total power load with the poe switch and a couple of APs was a fraction of the server ect.

But the big server was fun, it wasnt practical.
 
Associate
Joined
22 Mar 2020
Posts
149
Not tried them personally but I've read people have used Netgear RAX200 or Asus RT-AX88U - may be worth looking into them.
 
Back
Top Bottom