Advice on small business router

[Wesley Chapman]

Hi,
My friends have a small business and want to set up networking at their shop. I'm trying to keep cost and complexity to a minimum.
I'm ok with home networking, in fact I thought I was pretty darn good at it until I changed out my Netgear WNDR4000 for a Cisco RV320. That was humbling but I got though it successfully.
My friends are computer literate as in, they know how to turn on a computer and open a browser window, so they think I'm a computer master.
They don't need an enterprise grade network, just a simple network to connect some computers, some printers, a Nas or two and eventually some security cams with NVR.

Since I'm familiar with the Cisco RV units I was going to use an RV 320 or 345 but right now they are unobtainium or crazy expensive.

What would be a good alternate to the RV 320/345? I don't want integrated wireless and multi-wan isn't necessary, but would be nice.

Thanks

 

[bbunge]

Asus RT-AX86U or RT-AX86S

 

[degrub]

wireless or wired only ?
Budget ?
Are they physically away from other offices/business or a shared facility ?
Do they need access from the outside to the NAS units or PCs ?

 

[sfx2000]

Asus RT-AX86U or RT-AX86S

Only a fool uses consumer-grade HW/SW for a business connection.

@Wesley Chapman - check with the ISP, if this is a small business account, they should provide the gateway...

If they don't have anything to offer up, the RV series from Cisco is a good place to start - don't go cheap...

 

[Wesley Chapman]

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to table this discussion for now until I can do some more research on my own.

 

[Tech9]

I'm trying to keep cost and complexity to a minimum.

I run a few Cisco RV345 units in Dual WAN configuration and Cisco PoE APs. They are older devices and pricey, but very reliable. I never had a single failure for >3 years. The setup is very simple with available PoE ports. All the same hardware makes the support easy for me. No big security concerns since I control all the clients and 90% of the traffic is to local NAS.

 

[Tech9]

Only a fool uses consumer-grade HW/SW for a business connection.

Harsh, but very true. Home router from BestBuy or Amazon with two expected lifetime firmware updates or on perpetual beta firmware gives an idea what the business is and how much the owner cares about it. Today's home routers are manufactured as cheap as possible with planned obsolescence.

 

[sfx2000]

@Wesley Chapman - might consider the TP-Link Omada product line.

One can get the edge router, a switch, and a couple of AP's for a fairly decent price.

 

[coxhaus]

You can still buy the Cisco RV340 router. It is very reliable and not that expensive. I would recommend the RV340 over the RV320 routers. I think the RV320 has reached EOS, end of sale.

 

[HighCommand]

Hi,
My friends have a small business and want to set up networking at their shop. I'm trying to keep cost and complexity to a minimum.
I'm ok with home networking, in fact I thought I was pretty darn good at it until I changed out my Netgear WNDR4000 for a Cisco RV320. That was humbling but I got though it successfully.
My friends are computer literate as in, they know how to turn on a computer and open a browser window, so they think I'm a computer master.
They don't need an enterprise grade network, just a simple network to connect some computers, some printers, a Nas or two and eventually some security cams with NVR.

Since I'm familiar with the Cisco RV units I was going to use an RV 320 or 345 but right now they are unobtainium or crazy expensive.

What would be a good alternate to the RV 320/345? I don't want integrated wireless and multi-wan isn't necessary, but would be nice.

Thanks

Another poster mentioned the TP-Link Omada system. I am using it on my network. I have router, a main switch, a PoE switch, hardware controller and 2 access points. It is very easy to set up and manage and can probably handle what your friend needs. My network supports 2 NAS units, a network printer, network scanner, 2 media servers, 2 DNS servers with ad blocking, more than dozen IOT devices and 16 other clients (PC's, tablets, phones, IP cameras, etc.) and a guest network.

If they are considering NVR they should think about POE which will also make access point setup easier. Planning for it before the network is deployed is likely going to be the lowest cost approach. There are other SDN solutions, I went with the Omada system because I felt it was easier to setup and manage (I am not a network engineer) and for lower total cost.

 

[coxhaus]

The Cisco RV320 router is EOL. You really to be using a Cisco RV340 router for a small business.

 

[Christos]

Ubiquity Edgerouters are reliable and get updates every 6 months or so. Get the ER-4 or higher.

 

[Wesley Chapman]

Thanks. I found a used RV340 at a decent price.

 

[RMerlin]

Only a fool uses consumer-grade HW/SW for a business connection.

Funny story - my only customer that ever gives me issues caused by his router is one that has a Mikrotik router. That thing loves to automatically randomly blacklist either Google's own servers (took me days to figure out why Google sites were unreachable but everything else worked fine within their LAN), or recently it decided to blacklist their ISP's DNS servers...

The majority of my other business customers that have 2-20 employees are on Asus routers. For these sizes, they get the job done. Just disable the usual suspects like WPS or UPNP.

If I had a larger customer, I would go with a self-built pfsense/opensense solution. Too many prosummer products are overpriced AND underperforming. And they are not really that more secure. See Mikrotik's past record as an example. Or the unfixed RV issues that never will be fixed because things go EOL too early.

Over the years, I'm increasingly less impressed by any prosummer solution. There is a product gap between home/entry-level (like an Asus router) and REAL business class from Netgate/Cisco/Juniper if one wants security and long-term support. That gap is generally best filled by self-built solutions IMHO.

 

[coxhaus]

Cisco supports their RV routers for a long time. I have owned my RV340 since 2017. How many ASUS routers are still running and currently supported by ASUS from that time period? Everybody has already dumped them and moved on.
Right now, you can buy Cisco enterprise security if you want it for not much more than an ASUS high-end consumer router. Look at the Cisco Firepower 1010. Whether you can make it work is a whole another question. They are not easy to setup. But they have all the fixability you could ever want because you start from scratch. When you power up nothing works until you program it, both inbound and outbound.

I would never run an ASUS router as they don't interest me. I need something more flexible. And it seems like very few ASUS routers have long uptimes, most have to be rebooted often.

 

[RMerlin]

Cisco supports their RV routers for a long time. I have owned my RV340 since 2017. How many ASUS routers are still running and currently supported by ASUS from that time period?

At least 6 or 7 models. Just to name a few:

RT-AC68U (which was launched in 2013)
RT-AC88U
RT-AC3100
RT-AC5300
RT-AC86U
GT-AC5300
GT-AC2900

 

[Tech9]

Everybody has already dumped them and moved on.

Asus RT-N66U Dark Knight router from Dec, 2011 has available official firmware update from Jul, 2020. It also has available Asuswrt-Merlin fork and FreshTomato firmware options from Dec, 2021. This is 10 years of support and counting. Folks around are still using it.

 

[coxhaus]

At least 6 or 7 models. Just to name a few:

RT-AC68U (which was launched in 2013)
RT-AC88U
RT-AC3100
RT-AC5300
RT-AC86U
GT-AC5300
GT-AC2900

Interesting. I keep seeing you guys on this forum keep recommending to upgrade to AX routers because the old routers are too slow as they won't process enough traffic as people upgrade their internet pipe to gig.

 

[Tech9]

Interesting. I keep seeing you guys on this forum keep recommending to upgrade to AX routers because the old routers are too slow

Asus RT-AC68U from 2013 is faster hardware than Cisco RV34x from 2016. It does QoS and OpenVPN faster, as well as basic IPS with Trend Micro engine. You have missed a lot of information about what consumer routers can do. Newer ARMv8 home routers run circles around RV34x.

 

[coxhaus]

Then why are you recommending upgrading when their speed test fails to reach 1 gig? They are not running VPN.
Hardware, hardware you keep forgetting the software side and how well it is written.