Planning a major overhaul, critique my purchase plan!

[ashG]

I'm done playing with Walmart-level stuff. I need rock-solid stability and I'm about to be able to put some real effort into the project even if my budget is minimal. Please let me know what you think of the setup below!

* = new equipment

Cable modem: Arris SB8200
Router: Ubiquiti Edgerouter X *
Wireless AP: Unifi HD * with Cloudkey *

TP-Link 5 port gigabit switch will be plugged into the Edgerouter and will hold connections to my Qnap NAS, Fire TV, Sony BluRay player, and Ooma Telo.

I have enough CAT7 to run 50' along the baseboards from the Edgerouter to a central location in the house for the Unifi HD without having to use permanent installation methods (thus keeping my landlord happy).

My RT-68U will be moved to the office to act as a media hub. It will host my PC, my son's PC, the printer, and my repair station.

The TM-1900 will be returned to TMobile and I'll spend the deposit on a large pepperoni pizza next door.


Why this setup? I need coverage, stability, and speed. My son and I game regularly; I play MMOs, my son plays FPS. My daughter streams movies and TV. My wife does live webinars from a small studio I've put together in the office for her. All of this occasionally happens simultaneously, and our current setup begs for mercy when it does. I'm also tired of having to run around and reboot everything on a semi-regular basis when things go pear-shaped. Merlin's firmware on my 68U has helped considerably, but I'm not messing with a TM-1900 that's not really mine to begin with.

Thanks for your input!

 

[coxhaus]

Sounds like a reasonable upgrade. Once you get it all working you will never go back to a wireless router.

I kind of run the same thing but the Cisco flavor. I have a SB8200, RV340 router, 3 WAP371 wireless units, and 3 Cisco switches.

 

[MichaelCG]

I would consider going with 2-3 UAP-AC-LITE/LR/PRO instead of just one UAP-AC-HD. Unless you know you have 3x3 or 4x4 clients you are trying to serve at the fastest speed possible, getting your wireless clients spread across different airspace may help you more on latency and airspace contention.

I'm sure the HD will work just fine...just seems to be a bit overkill for what you have presented so far.

 

[Easy Rhino]

How big is your place? Will one AP cover it all?

 

[MichaelCG]

My house is a 1.5 story ~3000sqft including finished basement. I previously did have a single AP roughly central in the basement, but the far bedrooms were pretty poor coverage areas. With 3 APs, I can pretty much always assume I have 100Mbps+ on WiFi no matter where I am in the house no matter how many active clients I have. In the center of the house, I generally have 250Mbps+ on my laptops easily.

 

[Easy Rhino]

What are the fastest wifi clients you have? Does anything have better than 2x2 wifi right now? If not, then no single client will directly benefit a lot from using a 4x4 AP like the Unifi HD.

Are you contemplating buying three APs? Because at a list price of $350, that would make the Unifi HD cost pretty high.

Do you have the ability to run ethernet to both wings of the house where you'd have the satellite APs?

 

[Trip]

What's your internet link speed? If you intend on running downstream *and* upstream QoS on the link, and it's much more than 150Mb aggregate, or if there's an upgrade planned in the near future, I'd substitute an ER-4 for the ER-X and wire in web-managed switch via copper DAC -- budget dependent, of course. Otherwise, the ER-X will do fine running QoS at lower speeds, or deliver near line rate without QoS, and keep things simple and cheap, as it has an integrated switch chip (no switch necessary, at least not right away...).

As for wifi, if you're looking at UniFi mid-grade stuff + a cloud key already, I'd also look at Ruckus Unleashed. No controller/appliance needed, can seamlessly scale as needed, and IMHO better interference mitigation and performance in crowded RF space -- if that's applicable to your use-case. However, they are a tad bit pricier, depending on how many and what level MU-MIMO AP(s) you plan on buying. Just something to look at, though!

 

[netwrks]

The Unifi HD, which is far from mid grade, is a High Density AP, which was not really intended for putting in homes. Made for arena's and ballrooms, etc. If you expect one HD to cover your whole home, you may be disappointed. The radiation pattern is different than average AP's. Lot's of people like the AC-LR's, but I much prefer the AC-PRO's. Consider starting off with 2 AP's. These AP's are not to be configured as consumer blaster's. You can actually control the Tx, and various other attributes. These devices are designed to be configured. Auto channel / Auto power is a bad idea. A channel and power plan is a good idea.

 

[ls3c6]

Why prefer pro over lr? I'm replacing rtn66u which is randomly rebooting now.

I'm in the same boat and I install ubiquiti stuff at work but usually use usg/cloudkey/ap pros ... at home I was going to do edgerouter and 2 ap lr

 

[netwrks]

Why prefer pro over lr? I'm replacing rtn66u which is randomly rebooting now.

I'm in the same boat and I install ubiquiti stuff at work but usually use usg/cloudkey/ap pros ... at home I was going to do edgerouter and 2 ap lr

Just my preference. I also use a couple of AC-M's, as AP's, one outside, and one in the basement. I'm sure the LR's will be a good fit, for whatever you are doing, except outside, of course.

 

[System Error Message]

i critique your router choice. PFsense or mikrotik are way better choices because they dont rely on hardware acceleration since people who buy them are going to be using the features they come with that consumer routers dont. because when it comes to stability/reliability, many consumer routers do well on the wired end of things (except dlink and netgear) as long as theres enough hardware resource and firmware is decent.

Once you start using QoS on your high bandwidth connection, you're gonna be disappointed with ubiquiti's offerings. Their routers are at best good when being an internal router, not one that needs to perform QoS.

 

[ashG]

Major thanks, guys. I went with the ER-X and AP-AC-Pro (because of price). It has now been over a month and the only thing I've had to reboot has been the cable modem. This setup is rock solid. The whole house is covered and a good portion of the yards as well.

My wife's laptop was still running as slow as Christmas on the network; a little snooping around and I found out she had been trying to do media streaming and video call hosting on an internal PCIe 802.11n card. Come payday, she's getting an upgrade to a more modern card.

Thanks again - you guys are awesome!

 

[OzarkEdge]

Major thanks, guys. I went with the ER-X and AP-AC-Pro (because of price). It has now been over a month and the only thing I've had to reboot has been the cable modem. This setup is rock solid. The whole house is covered and a good portion of the yards as well.

My wife's laptop was still running as slow as Christmas on the network; a little snooping around and I found out she had been trying to do media streaming and video call hosting on an internal PCIe 802.11n card. Come payday, she's getting an upgrade to a more modern card.

Thanks again - you guys are awesome!

Just lurking through this interesting thread...

I'm wondering if the laptop wireless upgrade could be restricted by the number of available internal antennas? I've got a similar situation here with a big box (cheap) laptop and have not looked into yet.

OE

 

[coxhaus]

Good deal. I never reboot my network gear. The power company gets me every so often.