Best Wired Router

[OMNetworker]

What is the best wired router? Don't care about wifi. Want all, not just one, 2.5 wan and lan ports. Obviously can turn off wifi but been researching this for days and everything goes back to a wifi router with just 1 lan or 1 wan port. Also might need VPN access. Wired routers have seemed to just disappear from google and this site. Is there a way to search for this? Thanks in advance.

 

[Tech Junky]

So, you're looking for 802.3bz which is mgig / nbase-t which provides the 2.5 / 5 GE port speeds.

Multi-Gig Explained: Wi-Fi 7's Best Friend | Dong Knows Tech

Looking to go beyond Gigabit without rewiring your home? Check out Multi-Gig Ethernet and how its hardware will completely transform your network performance.

dongknows.com

Narrowing the search using the standard will get better results. However, junk WIFI routers tend to pop to the top of the lists because that have higher rankings when not narrowing to specific standards.

I built my own using a PC and a NIC though and it's easy to manage. It's not a GUI but just some CLI entries in config files and just works. I put in a quad 5GE NIC for $200 and can hit over 400MB/s to the "NAS" side of it from my laptop.

Routers though off the shelf tend to be a crappy mix of port speeds though. MGIG hasn't really caught on in the consumer space though there are more devices adding 2.5GE ports recently. Mikrotik / Ubiquiti / TPL though tend to have some options if you need something prepackaged.

There are options out there though. It depends on how much effort or cash you want to put into it.

 

[OMNetworker]

So, you're looking for 802.3bz which is mgig / nbase-t which provides the 2.5 / 5 GE port speeds.

Multi-Gig Explained: Wi-Fi 7's Best Friend | Dong Knows Tech

Looking to go beyond Gigabit without rewiring your home? Check out Multi-Gig Ethernet and how its hardware will completely transform your network performance.

dongknows.com

Narrowing the search using the standard will get better results. However, junk WIFI routers tend to pop to the top of the lists because that have higher rankings when not narrowing to specific standards.

I built my own using a PC and a NIC though and it's easy to manage. It's not a GUI but just some CLI entries in config files and just works. I put in a quad 5GE NIC for $200 and can hit over 400MB/s to the "NAS" side of it from my laptop.

Routers though off the shelf tend to be a crappy mix of port speeds though. MGIG hasn't really caught on in the consumer space though there are more devices adding 2.5GE ports recently. Mikrotik / Ubiquiti / TPL though tend to have some options if you need something prepackaged.

There are options out there though. It depends on how much effort or cash you want to put into it.

Thanks for the info and link. Very helpful.

 

[Tech9]

Want all, not just one, 2.5 wan and lan ports.

This what I'm using for my business networks:

Netgate 6100 BASE pfSense+ Security Gateway

The Netgate® 6100 is one of the most versatile security gateways in its class. It is ideal for home, remote workers, and small businesses who require flexible port configurations for high-speed WAN and LAN connectivity. The 6100 combines the power of an Intel C3558 Quad Core CPU with integrated...

shop.netgate.com

 

[coxhaus]

You can run pfSense or Opensense for free if you have a computer laying around as they don't take much ram. You need to add a dual port Intel NIC card.

 

[OMNetworker]

This what I'm using for my business networks:

Netgate 6100 BASE pfSense+ Security Gateway

The Netgate® 6100 is one of the most versatile security gateways in its class. It is ideal for home, remote workers, and small businesses who require flexible port configurations for high-speed WAN and LAN connectivity. The 6100 combines the power of an Intel C3558 Quad Core CPU with integrated...

shop.netgate.com

Thank you! I will check it out.

 

[Tech9]

You need to be patient if you need one. I had to wait 3 months for 3 units.

 

[OMNetworker]

You can run pfSense or Opensense for free if you have a computer laying around as they don't take much ram. You need to add a dual port Intel NIC card.

Thanks for the info. They seem not very simple to me, though. I do have a win 7 server running which does not have much activity. It is an i7-4771 with 16GB ram. If I added Opensense or pfSense do you think I could get 5-10 Gbs on my network?

 

[OMNetworker]

So my isp is 1 Gb. I have 3 computers that will have 2.5 to 10 Gb nics. If I am going from computer to computer on my network, through a 10 Gb switch, does the data and therefore the speed get reduced to the speed of the router? If not, I can just get a gigabit router and the switch? Though VPN might be a concern...

 

[degrub]

Device to device on a switch run at wirespeed through the switch if it is "non-blocking" and has a total througput spec of 2x wire sync speed x # of ports. Device to device on the switch ( not packets destined for the router) will run at that speed if the devices can keep up. You can test this by running iperf on the two devices. Probably have to multiple streams switch to try to saturate the packet handling in the switch.

The most common limitation will show up on the switch port from the switch to the LAN port of the router as ALL outbound traffic has to pass through that link. There can be contention for that link as well as too high of a bandwidth requirement from all the switch users happening to demand packets go to the router.
Some users use two ports set up in Link Aggregation if the router lan and switch ports support to get more bandwidth. However, that may just move the limitation to the CPU of the router.

That being said, for nominal home use, it is difficult to saturate 1Gb/s LAN connections unless doing continuous large data transfers.

 

[Tech Junky]

I do have a win 7 server running which does not have much activity. It is an i7-4771 with 16GB ram. If I added Opensense or pfSense do you think I could get 5-10 Gbs on my network?

I would convert this to Linux to both secure it properly and get the best performance out of the HW.

Depending on the setup and # of devices you have that need 5-10GE speed you can simply put in a couple of dual 10GE NICs for about $400 and skip the switch, Since the ISP connection is 1GE adding a 1GE port is pretty easy and cheap. Now, if you have 1gbps Cable there's a good chance it runs higher than that if you aggregate ports to breach the 1gbps limit of the single port.

I run a DIY setup although it's not xSense it's just vanilla Ubuntu for the skin and it hits line speeds using a 5GE quad port NIC ($200). The NIC is configured for 2 x WAN / 2 x LAN but, you can switch the ports around to 1+3 or add another NIC for WAN/LAN use only. When I started out with it I was using 2 quad 1GE NICs though for more port density and diversification for redundancy. Options are only limited to the number of slots and your budget.

 

[Tech9]

If not, I can just get a gigabit router and the switch?

As per your description, you want faster LAN only - get a switch and connect your devices to it. Gigabit router is good for your WAN.

 

[coxhaus]

So my isp is 1 Gb. I have 3 computers that will have 2.5 to 10 Gb nics. If I am going from computer to computer on my network, through a 10 Gb switch, does the data and therefore the speed get reduced to the speed of the router? If not, I can just get a gigabit router and the switch? Though VPN might be a concern...

AS stated above your router only needs to match your WAN speed on small networks. On large networks you could create a bottle neck on the router link and a layer 3 switch would solve that issue.