Router for Gigabit Internet

[Vulnox]

Hello all!

I currently have a Netgear R6300V2 for routing and about three months ago I had a gigabit fiber connection hooked up. We do quite a bit on our network, including running a Plex server which often has 2-5 people streaming off it from remote locations (only 1-2 are sometimes from inside the network), lots of games, downloads, etc.

The 6300 can't deal with the gigabit. Despite a lot of tinkering I can't get it to go above about 400Mbps when testing downloads/speed tests. When I hook the fiber connection directly into my laptop, it pulls down at 1Gbps down without issue. I spent a ton of time narrowing down my problem to the Netgear. I figured it was a hardware issue, but installed DD-WRT last night just as a last ditch effort, and still had the same result.

So now I am looking to replace it as it's pointless to pay for gigabit and not be able to utilize it fully.

I have been reading this forum like crazy, but between searches and just hoping to stumble have had trouble finding an answer. What is my best option for my environment? I have seen lots of great things said about the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HXT8EKE/?tag=snbforums-20)

and am willing to give that a shot. I would just have to use an external unit for Wifi.

Do others feel that is my best path? My only other consideration right now is something like a TP-Link Archer C7 for simplicity, but am concerned I would pay the same as the Ubiquiti but not have the possible performance of the Ubiquiti.

Thanks for any tips!

 

[netwrks]

The Archer is marginally quicker that the 6300 - 700mhz vs 600mhz CPU. I would test drive an AC1900 - Asus and /or Netgear. If you go Netgear run Xvortex/ Merlin port fw. If you go Asus run Merlin fw .

 

[System Error Message]

thats because all these ARM or MIPS based routers with hardware acceleration cant really do the job properly at gigabit speeds.
Do you connect to internet using PPPOE? This does add overheads.

If you have 1Gb/s down and up you need a router that can handle 2 Gb/s. My suggestions would be x86 (intel NUC, desktop, server, etc) or mikrotik's CCR1009. Ubiquiti only achieves gigabit speeds if you have no QoS or firewall and with PPPOE i dont think the ERL can handle it. Both mikrotik's CCR1009 and x86 have decent openVPN speeds so you can enjoy openVPN at WAN speeds as well (depends on provider but definitely if you are the server).

Do you use PPPOE to connect and what is your total bandwidth (upload + download). The ERL is a dual core MIPS with hardware acceleration, MIPS is only a bit faster than ARM in routing but even than the most you can get out of NAT from an ERL without using PPPOE or any sort of firewall or QoS is 1.3Gb/s. When you add any other rule to it the speed drops significantly. Also not all traffic can be hardware accelerated. The ERL also has flaky internal usb storage. But if the only thing you need from a router is NAT than the ERL Will barely suffice and consumer routers can be considered whereas if you want openVPN on your router any MIPS based router does it very very poorly however if you want openVPN throughput below 100Mb/s ASUS routers with RMerlin firmware would do the work.

Specs wise
Ubiquiti uses dual core 64 bit MIPS with hardware acceleration.
mikrotik CCR1009 is a true 9 core TILE based router (does wirespeed NAT and routing in software with no hardware acceleration)
consumer routers are using variations of dual core ARM With hardware acceleration. ARM is faster than MIPS in VPN but slower in routing.

None of the routers from consumer or Ubiquiti can match the processing power of the CCR1009 in routing, NAT, VPN, QoS and firewall throughput even if competing against the CCR using hardware acceleration while the CCR does software routing. In terms of cost per throughput the CCR beats other routers even if they use hardware acceleration. There are some downsides to the CCR which is the fan noise (There is fanless but its slightly more expensive), cant install 3rd party firmwares or softwares.

In comparison mikrotik's routerOS is actually more stable and less buggy than ubiquiti's EdgeOS, their hardware is also less flaky than the ERL but are on par with the ERPRO. In terms of usability both mikrotik and ubiquiti are the same but mikrotik doesnt use pretty colours in their GUI and while mikrotik has scripting and layer 2 firewall it doesnt allow you to install anything else. It is a dedicated router.

I have both the ERPRO and the CCR1036 and i like the CCR1036 more because the firmware is much better and it can do all sorts of weird routing stuff that you cant do on ubiquiti and do it fast. The only thing i dont like it is the fan noise but i managed to mod my way out of it.

in terms of support ubiquiti and mikrotik are equally appalling so while basic problems are addressed by their support (Forums and emails) advanced things that make them special do not get any support. However mikrotik allows you to change the clockspeeds of their routers (good for heat and power) while ubiquiti says a big "no" to changing the clockspeeds of routers. It just goes to show the different communities that use them.

 

[Vulnox]

thats because all these ARM or MIPS based routers with hardware acceleration cant really do the job properly at gigabit speeds.
Do you connect to internet using PPPOE? This does add overheads.

If you have 1Gb/s down and up you need a router that can handle 2 Gb/s. My suggestions would be x86 (intel NUC, desktop, server, etc) or mikrotik's CCR1009. Ubiquiti only achieves gigabit speeds if you have no QoS or firewall and with PPPOE i dont think the ERL can handle it. Both mikrotik's CCR1009 and x86 have decent openVPN speeds so you can enjoy openVPN at WAN speeds as well (depends on provider but definitely if you are the server).

Do you use PPPOE to connect and what is your total bandwidth (upload + download). The ERL is a dual core MIPS with hardware acceleration, MIPS is only a bit faster than ARM in routing but even than the most you can get out of NAT from an ERL without using PPPOE or any sort of firewall or QoS is 1.3Gb/s. When you add any other rule to it the speed drops significantly. Also not all traffic can be hardware accelerated. The ERL also has flaky internal usb storage. But if the only thing you need from a router is NAT than the ERL Will barely suffice and consumer routers can be considered whereas if you want openVPN on your router any MIPS based router does it very very poorly however if you want openVPN throughput below 100Mb/s ASUS routers with RMerlin firmware would do the work.

Specs wise
Ubiquiti uses dual core 64 bit MIPS with hardware acceleration.
mikrotik CCR1009 is a true 9 core TILE based router (does wirespeed NAT and routing in software with no hardware acceleration)
consumer routers are using variations of dual core ARM With hardware acceleration. ARM is faster than MIPS in VPN but slower in routing.

None of the routers from consumer or Ubiquiti can match the processing power of the CCR1009 in routing, NAT, VPN, QoS and firewall throughput even if competing against the CCR using hardware acceleration while the CCR does software routing. In terms of cost per throughput the CCR beats other routers even if they use hardware acceleration. There are some downsides to the CCR which is the fan noise (There is fanless but its slightly more expensive), cant install 3rd party firmwares or softwares.

In comparison mikrotik's routerOS is actually more stable and less buggy than ubiquiti's EdgeOS, their hardware is also less flaky than the ERL but are on par with the ERPRO. In terms of usability both mikrotik and ubiquiti are the same but mikrotik doesnt use pretty colours in their GUI and while mikrotik has scripting and layer 2 firewall it doesnt allow you to install anything else. It is a dedicated router.

I have both the ERPRO and the CCR1036 and i like the CCR1036 more because the firmware is much better and it can do all sorts of weird routing stuff that you cant do on ubiquiti and do it fast. The only thing i dont like it is the fan noise but i managed to mod my way out of it.

in terms of support ubiquiti and mikrotik are equally appalling so while basic problems are addressed by their support (Forums and emails) advanced things that make them special do not get any support. However mikrotik allows you to change the clockspeeds of their routers (good for heat and power) while ubiquiti says a big "no" to changing the clockspeeds of routers. It just goes to show the different communities that use them.

Thanks for the reply!

I am utilizing RFC 1483 via DHCP for the ISP protocol. The speeds are 1000Mbps Down, 400Mbps up, so that sounds like it should help a bit. I don't need it to be perfect 1000/400 at the same time all the time, I just want something that can at least give me my 1000 down, or as close as possible, and at least 200 up.

Also would prefer to do this for less than $200, I guess I should have specified that part and apologize. Thank you so much for the information provided, I will be looking some of them over!

 

[netwrks]

If you can get Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite for your price point, then go for it. I have the UBNPoE5 port, and have had no issues to date, after close to a year running it. I will say that you cant do much with QoS smartqueue on the ERL and the Poe5 port, won't work with anything past 100Mbps, but if you don't use SmartQueue you should be alright. At least try and see how well it works for you. If it doesn't work the way you want, return it.

 

[coxhaus]

You could try pfSense if you have an old spare PC lying around. pfSense is free. If you have to buy a PC it would cost more than $200. The nice thing about trying is it was free. A basic install is pretty easy. Probably easier than these other high end routers you are looking at. pfSense has the good traffic shaping for an inexpensive router.

 

[System Error Message]

if you cant get the mikrotik CCR1009 than going for x86 would be fine. Consider recycling an old PC. Even the core2 duo and AMD Phenom ii are capable of gigabit speeds with QoS though you should consider an intel NIC when using pfsense.

What makes the ERL and ERPOE-5 bad is their usb storage which can get messed up during firmware updates. Its not a problem when you're running it but when you update the firmware it can cause problems.

 

[netwrks]

if you cant get the mikrotik CCR1009 than going for x86 would be fine. Consider recycling an old PC. Even the core2 duo and AMD Phenom ii are capable of gigabit speeds with QoS though you should consider an intel NIC when using pfsense.

What makes the ERL and ERPOE-5 bad is their usb storage which can get messed up during firmware updates. Its not a problem when you're running it but when you update the firmware it can cause problems.

Made it through one fw update on the PoE5. Will let you know how the second update goes!

 

[Vulnox]

Thank you all very much for the feedback! I do have an old Core2Duo Dell machine that has just been sitting around waiting for a purpose, may be fun to tinker with.

 

[alruf]

Hello all!

I currently have a Netgear R6300V2 for routing and about three months ago I had a gigabit fiber connection hooked up. We do quite a bit on our network, including running a Plex server which often has 2-5 people streaming off it from remote locations (only 1-2 are sometimes from inside the network), lots of games, downloads, etc.

The 6300 can't deal with the gigabit. Despite a lot of tinkering I can't get it to go above about 400Mbps when testing downloads/speed tests. When I hook the fiber connection directly into my laptop, it pulls down at 1Gbps down without issue. I spent a ton of time narrowing down my problem to the Netgear. I figured it was a hardware issue, but installed DD-WRT last night just as a last ditch effort, and still had the same result.

So now I am looking to replace it as it's pointless to pay for gigabit and not be able to utilize it fully.

I have been reading this forum like crazy, but between searches and just hoping to stumble have had trouble finding an answer. What is my best option for my environment? I have seen lots of great things said about the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HXT8EKE/?tag=snbforums-20)

and am willing to give that a shot. I would just have to use an external unit for Wifi.

Do others feel that is my best path? My only other consideration right now is something like a TP-Link Archer C7 for simplicity, but am concerned I would pay the same as the Ubiquiti but not have the possible performance of the Ubiquiti.

Thanks for any tips!

@Vulnox , I too have gigabit fiber connection at home and at first I was only getting 300Mbps. To make a long story short, I replaced my Netgear WNDR3700 running DD-WRT with a Netgear R8000 and my speed jumped up to 1Gbps up and down. As soon as I installed DD-WRT on the R8000 it went right back down to 300Mbps. Reverting to stock Netgear firmware took me right back up to 1Gbps so I came to the conclusion it was DD-WRT's fault. I obviosuly tried to disable everything I could to see what was causing the bottleneck but had to give up. After several months my Netgear R8000 died so I purchased the Asus RT-AC3200 and loved it. I installed @RMerlin 's firmware and loved the router even more. Alas after several months that router died as well!! In its replacement I purchased the Asus RT-AC5300 and installed @RMerlin 's firmware last night. I am getting my full 1Gbps up/down as long as I do not go through a Netgear smart switch I was using for teaming.

In short I was able to get my full 1Gbps ISP speed using the Netgear R8000, Asus RT-AC3200, and Asus RT-AC5300. My tests were run using both speedtest.net and ATT's Speedtest (my ISP).

 

[rajl]

@Vulnox , I too have gigabit fiber connection at home and at first I was only getting 300Mbps. To make a long story short, I replaced my Netgear WNDR3700 running DD-WRT with a Netgear R8000 and my speed jumped up to 1Gbps up and down. As soon as I installed DD-WRT on the R8000 it went right back down to 300Mbps. Reverting to stock Netgear firmware took me right back up to 1Gbps so I came to the conclusion it was DD-WRT's fault. I obviosuly tried to disable everything I could to see what was causing the bottleneck but had to give up. After several months my Netgear R8000 died so I purchased the Asus RT-AC3200 and loved it. I installed @RMerlin 's firmware and loved the router even more. Alas after several months that router died as well!! In its replacement I purchased the Asus RT-AC5300 and installed @RMerlin 's firmware last night. I am getting my full 1Gbps up/down as long as I do not go through a Netgear smart switch I was using for teaming.

In short I was able to get my full 1Gbps ISP speed using the Netgear R8000, Asus RT-AC3200, and Asus RT-AC5300. My tests were run using both speedtest.net and ATT's Speedtest (my ISP).

Sounds like the Netgear firmware supported hardware acceleration of NAT (e.g. Cut-through forwarding) and the DD-WRT firmware did not.

 

[System Error Message]

@Vulnox , I too have gigabit fiber connection at home and at first I was only getting 300Mbps. To make a long story short, I replaced my Netgear WNDR3700 running DD-WRT with a Netgear R8000 and my speed jumped up to 1Gbps up and down. As soon as I installed DD-WRT on the R8000 it went right back down to 300Mbps. Reverting to stock Netgear firmware took me right back up to 1Gbps so I came to the conclusion it was DD-WRT's fault. I obviosuly tried to disable everything I could to see what was causing the bottleneck but had to give up. After several months my Netgear R8000 died so I purchased the Asus RT-AC3200 and loved it. I installed @RMerlin 's firmware and loved the router even more. Alas after several months that router died as well!! In its replacement I purchased the Asus RT-AC5300 and installed @RMerlin 's firmware last night. I am getting my full 1Gbps up/down as long as I do not go through a Netgear smart switch I was using for teaming.

In short I was able to get my full 1Gbps ISP speed using the Netgear R8000, Asus RT-AC3200, and Asus RT-AC5300. My tests were run using both speedtest.net and ATT's Speedtest (my ISP).

Its not DD-WRT's fault, that 1Gb/s you get through those ARM based routers are with hardware acceleration, They just cant keep up with x86 and TILE. 300Mb/s was what you were getting without hardware acceleration.

A lot will say with 1Gb/s you dont need QoS, but i think you still do need priority QoS to maintain latency for things like games and maintain some bandwidth for VOIP because with 1Gb/s without QoS when you are gaming and someone initiates a download from a fast server or a torrent with lots of connections and fast hosts that could cause you to lag badly or disconnect. QoS is for multiple simultaneous use.

 

[alruf]

@rajl @System Error Message - It looks like that might have been the issue... I was looking to disable something that was causing the slow down, not enable something... When I get my RT-AC3200 back from the service center I might try DD-WRT on it to see if I can get the 1Gbps. I checked on my RT-AC5300 and under "Tools" menu (RMerlin's firmware) it says "HW Acceleration - Enabled". Thanks for pointing this out!

I read up more on the topic here (if others are interested): http://routerguide.net/nat-acceleration-on-or-off/

 

[Cloud200]

A lot will say with 1Gb/s you dont need QoS, but i think you still do need priority QoS to maintain latency for things like games and maintain some bandwidth for VOIP because with 1Gb/s without QoS when you are gaming and someone initiates a download from a fast server or a torrent with lots of connections and fast hosts that could cause you to lag badly or disconnect. QoS is for multiple simultaneous use.

This is completely wrong.
A 1000/1000 connection is first and foremost a serial connection. The ISP will process packets in the order you send them. The second part is unless you have a link agg or 10gb connection into your router there is no benefit at all to QOS. Packet A hits the router on a 1gb link. Packet B hits .001ms later. By the time B hit, A is already on its way down the WAN link. Why would you bother delaying A? Because of it being a serial connection, B never had the chance to interfere with A.
If you really want QOS to work on a network with a 1gbps pipe, it has to be done before it hits the router (at the switch level).

Edit: there are of course caveats to this.
For example, take a CCR or ER8. If you have a client on every port . . . yes, you can clog up the WAN pipe. That is because you are sending more than 1gbps of data to the router at one time. Every client gets a 1gbps pipe to the CPU. OTOH if you put all your clients on a switch first and only have the switch connected to the router . . . it will never be bursted beyond 1gbps because of the incoming LAN port connected to the switch.

AFAIK, most of not all home routers have a switch chip with only a 1/1gbe internal port connected to the CPU. This bottlenecks the flow no differently than an external switch.

 

[System Error Message]

This is completely wrong.
A 1000/1000 connection is first and foremost a serial connection. The ISP will process packets in the order you send them. The second part is unless you have a link agg or 10gb connection into your router there is no benefit at all to QOS. Packet A hits the router on a 1gb link. Packet B hits .001ms later. By the time B hit, A is already on its way down the WAN link. Why would you bother delaying A? Because of it being a serial connection, B never had the chance to interfere with A.
If you really want QOS to work on a network with a 1gbps pipe, it has to be done before it hits the router (at the switch level).

Edit: there are of course caveats to this.
For example, take a CCR or ER8. If you have a client on every port . . . yes, you can clog up the WAN pipe. That is because you are sending more than 1gbps of data to the router at one time. Every client gets a 1gbps pipe to the CPU. OTOH if you put all your clients on a switch first and only have the switch connected to the router . . . it will never be bursted beyond 1gbps because of the incoming LAN port connected to the switch.

AFAIK, most of not all home routers have a switch chip with only a 1/1gbe internal port connected to the CPU. This bottlenecks the flow no differently than an external switch.

when you have multiple users doing different things its easy to saturate it for short periods like downloading updates, downloading files, torrents

 

[abailey]

when you have multiple users doing different things its easy to saturate it for short periods like downloading updates, downloading files, torrents

This is true but I think what Cloud200 is saying is that if all the clients are hooked to a switch and the switch is hooked to the router with a 1Gb connection then QOS on the router (that has Gigabit to the internet) is of very limited value (if any value) as the bottle neck will be back at the switch. So any QOS would need to be done at the switch.
So unless you have multiple clients or switches connected to your router, then the QOS at the router level won't help much. On consumer routers all of their LAN connections are usually on a switch with a 1Gb connection to the processor. So on those it won't help much if there is a 1GB connection to the internet.

 

[Cloud200]

This is true but I think what Cloud200 is saying is that if all the clients are hooked to a switch and the switch is hooked to the router with a 1Gb connection then QOS on the router (that has Gigabit to the internet) is of very limited value (if any value) as the bottle neck will be back at the switch. So any QOS would need to be done at the switch.
So unless you have multiple clients or switches connected to your router, then the QOS at the router level won't help much. On consumer routers all of their LAN connections are usually on a switch with a 1Gb connection to the processor. So on those it won't help much if there is a 1GB connection to the internet.

Correct.
QOS at the router level in both situations will hurt rather than help in away way.

 

[kvic]

Interesintg points of view regarding placement of QoS...by all means I appreciate the discussions.

This is true but I think what Cloud200 is saying is that if all the clients are hooked to a switch and the switch is hooked to the router with a 1Gb connection then QOS on the router (that has Gigabit to the internet) is of very limited value (if any value) as the bottle neck will be back at the switch. So any QOS would need to be done at the switch.

Counter argument:

If the connection between the router and the switch is a serial link, how big a difference does QoS make by placing at the start of the link (i.e QoS at the switch) vs at the end of the link (i.e. QoS at the router)?

Logics only..not a QoS/network guru..

 

[Cloud200]

Interesintg points of view regarding placement of QoS...by all means I appreciate the discussions.



Counter argument:

If the connection between the router and the switch is a serial link, how big a difference does QoS make by placing at the start of the link (i.e QoS at the switch) vs at the end of the link (i.e. QoS at the router)?

Logics only..not a QoS/network guru..

Depending on the type of traffic . . . significant difference.
This is where DiffServe, DSCP, and CoS all come into play. On enterprise level networks it is just as important (and sometimes even more so) to properly set up QoS on your switches than gateway edge router.
It gets really important when you have two situations;
Speed differential. Going from 100mbps to gigabit and back, Gigabit to 10gbe etc . . .
Oversubscribed flows. Data, voice, backups, Xbox live all traveling along the same uplink on a switch with a 1gbe link.
No QoS here would be painful . . . but set it such that you get the following order and it's not so bad;
0: backups
1: data
2: voice TCP
3: voice UDP
4: XBL (what can I say . . . I'm biased)
5: network control/config (SSH, telnet, etc)

Edit:
This gets even more important when you have the following topology:
WAN <- 1/1gbps -> Router <- 1gbe -> Layer 3 Switch <- 1gbe-> Layer 2 access switch <- mix of 100 and 1000 mbps clients

 

[rajl]

@rajl @System Error Message - It looks like that might have been the issue... I was looking to disable something that was causing the slow down, not enable something... When I get my RT-AC3200 back from the service center I might try DD-WRT on it to see if I can get the 1Gbps. I checked on my RT-AC5300 and under "Tools" menu (RMerlin's firmware) it says "HW Acceleration - Enabled". Thanks for pointing this out!

I read up more on the topic here (if others are interested): http://routerguide.net/nat-acceleration-on-or-off/

The chances of DD-WRT supporting it are slim, but greater than something like OpenWRT. Hardware NAT acceleration is generally a driver level configuration option and is generally only available when using binary blob drivers. Merlin's firmware supports it because he uses the ASUS stock firmware as a base and adds some usability tweaks on top of it. DD-WRT sometimes supports this feature because they do allow for binary blob drivers in the firmware, but they don't have access to appropriate drivers for every instance. OpenWRT bans all non-FOSS drivers, so they don't support it at all.

Also, you need to keep in mind that certain settings tend to disable hardware acceleration. For example, QoS requires that acceleration be disabled because the router needs to receive and analyze packets and potentially delay or reorder them. This can't be done at line speed using the processors available for most consumer routers. You need beefier gear to do QoS at gigabit speed.