Aimesh 2.5gbe backhaul setup advice

[treben]

Hello, I currently have two xt8's running as an aimesh setup with wireless backhaul. I also have a gt-ax11000 on the way that I am looking to have as my main router with the two xt8's acting as nodes. Most of my clients connect to the 2nd xt8 which will be furthest from the ax11000 main router. I recently setup a new NAS and have been having some issues with high bitrate videos stuttering when streaming to my tv, which is what led me to look at upgrading my network. Because I have several 2.5gbe capable client machines and the 2.5gbe nas running plex, I am looking at trying to upgrade the network to 2.5gbe, as well as changeover to wired backhaul for stability and to free up the third wireless channel. I'm looking for some advice on the best way to set this up. The setup I am considering is as follows:

ax11000 wired via 2.5gbe port to an unmanaged 2.5gbe switch, switch to xt8(1) 2.5gbe wan port, switch to xt8(2) 2.5gbe wan port via aimesh

Admittedly, I am not very familiar with switches and am not sure if having both nodes behind a switch will cause issues with bandwidth or connectivity. I'm also wondering if it's better using this setup (hub and spoke type) or if it would be better to get a usb 2.5gbe adapter for the xt8(1) and use that to connect to the xt8(2) wan port, if that's possible.
In the reading that I've done researching this setup I've also seen people mention that it might be better to run a setup like this using access points instead of aimesh but I am unsure of the ramifications of this, or if this would even be beneficial.
One other little wrinkle is tthat I have an isolated guest network setup that I would like to continue using.

Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[OzarkEdge]

Hello, I currently have two xt8's running as an aimesh setup with wireless backhaul. I also have a gt-ax11000 on the way that I am looking to have as my main router with the two xt8's acting as nodes. Most of my clients connect to the 2nd xt8 which will be furthest from the ax11000 main router. I recently setup a new NAS and have been having some issues with high bitrate videos stuttering when streaming to my tv, which is what led me to look at upgrading my network. Because I have several 2.5gbe capable client machines and the 2.5gbe nas running plex, I am looking at trying to upgrade the network to 2.5gbe, as well as changeover to wired backhaul for stability and to free up the third wireless channel. I'm looking for some advice on the best way to set this up. The setup I am considering is as follows:

ax11000 wired via 2.5gbe port to an unmanaged 2.5gbe switch, switch to xt8(1) 2.5gbe wan port, switch to xt8(2) 2.5gbe wan port via aimesh

Admittedly, I am not very familiar with switches and am not sure if having both nodes behind a switch will cause issues with bandwidth or connectivity. I'm also wondering if it's better using this setup (hub and spoke type) or if it would be better to get a usb 2.5gbe adapter for the xt8(1) and use that to connect to the xt8(2) wan port, if that's possible.
In the reading that I've done researching this setup I've also seen people mention that it might be better to run a setup like this using access points instead of aimesh but I am unsure of the ramifications of this, or if this would even be beneficial.
One other little wrinkle is tthat I have an isolated guest network setup that I would like to continue using.

Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Wired backhaul is a worthwhile goal, especially for the node serving most clients... it should work as you plan, star topology preferred, through an unmanaged switch, if necessary.

The forced upgrade from 1GbE to 2.5GbE is probably not necessary... wiring the backhaul (and TV) would be the significant gain, in my estimation, especially if the current streaming issue is over a wireless backhaul.

OE

 

[treben]

Wired backhaul is a worthwhile goal, especially for the node serving most clients... it should work as you plan, star topology preferred, through an unmanaged switch, if necessary.

The forced upgrade from 1GbE to 2.5GbE is probably not necessary... wiring the backhaul (and TV) would be the significant gain, in my estimation, especially if the current streaming issue is over a wireless backhaul.

OE

Hello, and thank you for your response. If I am understanding correctly, you are saying that it will be enough to forget the switch and just wire each node to the main router, not daisy chained, via the gigabit ports. I believe the switch would have been required to wire the backhaul as 2.5gbe due to the ax11000 only having one 2.5gbe lan port. If I did choose to add the switch so that the backhaul is 2.5gbe, as well as allowing me to connect some 2.5gbe clients to the switch: Would having clients and nodes connected to the switch open me up to bandwidth issues? I guess I'm wondering if it's worth it to get the switch or will the benefits of 2.5gbe be erased by running all my traffic through it? Thank you once again for your input.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Hello, and thank you for your response. If I am understanding correctly, you are saying that it will be enough to forget the switch and just wire each node to the main router, not daisy chained, via the gigabit ports. I believe the switch would have been required to wire the backhaul as 2.5gbe due to the ax11000 only having one 2.5gbe lan port. If I did choose to add the switch so that the backhaul is 2.5gbe, as well as allowing me to connect some 2.5gbe clients to the switch: Would having clients and nodes connected to the switch open me up to bandwidth issues? I guess I'm wondering if it's worth it to get the switch or will the benefits of 2.5gbe be erased by running all my traffic through it? Thank you once again for your input.

Yes, if you want 2.5GbE for more than one client/node, you would need the switch; otherwise, settle for a Gigabit LAN for now.

I would not worry about congestion with 1 or 2.5GbE until you see it. My suspicion is that your streaming issue is most likely a WiFi (or new NAS) delay... which may become a non-issue with a Gigabit or better wired backhaul.

OE

 

[Piggie]

Hello, I currently have two xt8's running as an aimesh setup with wireless backhaul. I also have a gt-ax11000 on the way that I am looking to have as my main router with the two xt8's acting as nodes. Most of my clients connect to the 2nd xt8 which will be furthest from the ax11000 main router. I recently setup a new NAS and have been having some issues with high bitrate videos stuttering when streaming to my tv, which is what led me to look at upgrading my network. Because I have several 2.5gbe capable client machines and the 2.5gbe nas running plex, I am looking at trying to upgrade the network to 2.5gbe, as well as changeover to wired backhaul for stability and to free up the third wireless channel. I'm looking for some advice on the best way to set this up. The setup I am considering is as follows:

ax11000 wired via 2.5gbe port to an unmanaged 2.5gbe switch, switch to xt8(1) 2.5gbe wan port, switch to xt8(2) 2.5gbe wan port via aimesh

Admittedly, I am not very familiar with switches and am not sure if having both nodes behind a switch will cause issues with bandwidth or connectivity. I'm also wondering if it's better using this setup (hub and spoke type) or if it would be better to get a usb 2.5gbe adapter for the xt8(1) and use that to connect to the xt8(2) wan port, if that's possible.
In the reading that I've done researching this setup I've also seen people mention that it might be better to run a setup like this using access points instead of aimesh but I am unsure of the ramifications of this, or if this would even be beneficial.
One other little wrinkle is tthat I have an isolated guest network setup that I would like to continue using.

Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I'd be curious to see if your set up worked. Let me know once you get your AX11000. Given the AX1100 and XT8 all just have one 2.5 Gbps wan port, I don't know if connecting into a switch would work. Asus provides the following diagram:

[AiMesh] How to set up ASUS AiMesh or ZenWiFi Mesh Ethernet backhaul under different conditions ? (Advanced setup with network switch) | Official Support | ASUS Global

If your set up works, please let me know. I've been stuck at 1 Gbps wired backhaul and would love to move it up to 2.5Gbps.

 

[tgl]

You should definitely be able to use the XT8s' 2.5G ports for backhaul. What's not entirely clear to me from reading the AX11000's spec sheet is whether they think the single 2.5G port is for the WAN or LAN side. If you have another box you're using as router/firewall, then you can run the AX11000 in AP mode and it won't matter: all the ports will be treated alike. But if you are using the AX11000 in router mode then the backhaul connections have to be made to the LAN side, and you'll only be able to get 2.5G if you can configure that port as a LAN port.

Also: in principle, two 1G cables from the nodes to separate 1G LAN ports on the router would give you nearly as much total backhaul bandwidth as a single 2.5G connection. However, that's only true in reality if (a) the traffic demand is fairly evenly split between the two nodes, and (b) there's not an aggregate-bandwidth limit on the AX11000's LAN ports. I do not know about the AX11000's hardware in particular, but I did some experiments awhile ago with an XT8 that indicated that the total bandwidth available from WAN to all of the LAN ports was only about 1G, even though data transfers between any two LAN ports could run concurrently at full speed.

Given the setup you're describing, I'd be inclined to forget about a switch and run a cable from the lesser-used node to a 1G LAN port, and a second cable from the more-used node to the 2.5G port if you can configure that as LAN, or a second 1G port if not. Saves the cost of a switch and you'll have more total bandwidth.