Hi everyone,
I’m not sure if this is the right community, but the home networking magazines seem to be pretty dead. I’m a bit green with regard to networking, and am looking for help to see if the plan I’ve come up with will work.
The main image in the post is my current network setup. Basically the ISP modem/router is just a pass through and the 10 Gb port is connected to my Asus router, which has the DHCP server activated. All of my devices, home lab and smart home devices are connected to the Asus router via either Wifi or Ethernet. This works well, but I have many neighbours close by, and with my 30+ wifi devices, I think things aren’t working as well as they could be. I guess you could say one of my main motivations to start messing with this is to clean it up and move all possible devices to Ethernet.
The planned new setup is as follows, but I’m not sure if it’s even possible to function this way.
https://i.postimg.cc/7YftSFt6/IMG-9281.jpg
ISP modem/router > 2.5 Gb unmanaged switch > 2.5 Gb capable devices (NAS, hypervisor, PCs) will connect directly here, along with a 1 Gb managed switch to handle the DHCP > Asus router would connect to the managed switch to provide wifi, and remaining wired devices will all connect to the managed switch as well.
Any assistance would be appreciated! Thanks!
Edit: fixed second image url
The main issue is your 30+ Wi-Fi devices. One AP can only handle this much total bandwidth. But first, it looks like you waste 2gb of your fibre speed? Get a compatible router.
For your setup it almost looks like you’re better off with a total 10gb internal speed. And get 2 more AP, one dedicated for your smart home, one for „less important devices“ and use the ASUS for the rest. - remember to use different channels on each AP.
So in short hook your HV,NAS,PC,[new router w/ AP?],[AP2],[AP3],[AP1?] on a new 10GB switch. Split your devices over the 3 AP, on different channels
Edit: or you could get one of those for cheaper „Qnap QSW-M2108R-2C“ That is a 2.5G with two additional 10G ports so you could plug your new router into one of them and use the other for later use of the NAS if it supports that speed
proper access points support 30+ clients without any problem (I doubt that the advertised number of 300 clients holds up for unifi aps, but 30 is definitely not a problem), especially for low traffic clients like iot devices.
why op gives up 2gbps from his 3gbps line is a mystery to me though…
The 3Gbps line is new to me, just upgraded from 1.5 as it was only $5 more per month, so I’m looking at how to actually utilize this now, not actively “giving up” 2Gbps 🙂. I also didn’t have any devices that could take advantage of it until some upgrades, so here we are.
OP needs a proper router that make use of their 3g fiber which will be mostly newer and powerfull and has better wifi. That should be their 1st priority.
Edit: You don’t need a 2.5gb ethernet (or better for futur proofing) for every client, but that NAS and Hypervisor could use that bandwith so consider yor options while you are at it.
I could definitely use the ISP router as well, and just add a 2.5/10G switch, but it is very limiting and when I first tried it, it would reset my settings every time the IP changed (anywhere from 1 week to 1 day). I definitely want the NAS, HV and my main PC on a faster connection.
You can always use your current router as an AP and use an x86 pc with 10gbe or 2.5gb network card(s) as your main router (or even a switch)
Is it necessary to dedicate a WAP to IoT, etc? I would recommend setting up separate SSIDs and connect each to their own VLAN, and each VLAN a subnet. And have each WaP broadcast each SSID and have the router handle the traffic routing. That way WAPs are dedicated to the devices that they are near, not the devices they are assigned to.
Since VLAN isn’t officially part of the standard, you’d need all your network devices support it. And I wanted to give a device-load-balance. So not increase coverage but reduce the amount of devices per AP. Separate SSIDs and VLAN aren’t helping that it just makes it easier to track, wich group is causing the load
VLANs are a standard: 802.1Q. Your client devices don’t have to support it, just your switches, routers, and access points. On a switch, you can configure each port to treat untagged data as part of a particular VLAN. Similarly, with a good wi-fi access point, you can add multiple SSIDs each of which is on a different VLAN.
You’re right. I just gave a very simplified answer. VLAN isn’t part of the default network communication and therefore every „node“ needs to support it and be correctly set up, or otherwise the VLAN tag will be removed at that point.
And in my other comment I emphasized, that my main issue with multiple WAP is, to distribute the amount of devices each has to talk to. Multi SSID wouldn’t solve that