Seeking Wired Router with multiple 2.5Gb Ethernet Ports

[Tony Mathews]

Good Afternoon, I am looking for the following. I am running and Netgear CM2000 Cable modem with a 2.5Gb connection directly to my PC. I am wanting to add an router in between without loosing my 2.5Gb in between. I am having a hard time locating a wired router with that option. Do any of you know of any on the market and if so; what are they?

 

[TheLostSwede]

I presume your cable modem doesn't have a DHCP server built in?
If that's the case, a switch isn't going to help, you need a router with two 2.5Gbps ports, which simply isn't a thing, yet.
There should be some coming later this year though.

Alternatively you need something like this

Nighthawk CAX80 – DOCSIS 3.1 Cable Modem Router with WiFi 6 | NETGEAR

The Nighthawk AX8 WiFi 6 Cable Modem Router pairs DOCSIS 3.1 with WiFi 6 to give you the performance that today's smart homes demand. Buy now!

www.netgear.com

 

[Tony Mathews]

I presume your cable modem doesn't have a DHCP server built in?
If that's the case, a switch isn't going to help, you need a router with two 2.5Gbps ports, which simply isn't a thing, yet.
There should be some coming later this year though.

Modem should have a DHCP server, but limited at best, and is with Comcast service.

 

[Tech9]

Modems don't have DHCP server. CM2000 is a modem only.

 

[Trip]

@Tony Mathews - If you've got the skill and are comfortable separating wireless duty to a dedicated AP, checkout the Mikrotik RB5009 (if you can find one in stock...). Combine that with the S+RJ10 adapter module and you'll have 2.5Gb full-duplex WAN-LAN link speed with two 2.5GbE ports.

 

[skypx]

QNAP QHora 301W

 

[TheLostSwede]

QNAP QHora 301W

It's apparently a very limited router that isn't quite a finished product in many ways.

 

[RMerlin]

Asus' GT-AX6000 as well as their new Zenwifi ET12/XT12 products have two 2.5Gbps ports. No idea on availability however, they were only recently announced.

 

[skypx]

It's apparently a very limited router that isn't quite a finished product in many ways.

I agree 100%. It’s missing a lot of features compared to Asus AX routers.
I’m not a fan of QNAP after using their NAS for years and having to deal with crap firmware updates. However, the 301w is perfect for my use case since I needed a 10G connection to a 10G switch. Plus the icing on the cake is 60% better performance on the 5Ghz band compared to the Asus AXE11000 (Firmware Version 3.0.0.4.386.45850).

 

[TheLostSwede]

I agree 100%. It’s missing a lot of features compared to Asus AX routers.
I’m not a fan of QNAP after using their NAS for years and having to deal with crap firmware updates. However, the 301w is perfect for my use case since I needed a 10G connection to a 10G switch. Plus the icing on the cake is 60% better performance on the 5Ghz band compared to the Asus AXE11000 (Firmware Version 3.0.0.4.386.45850).

It seems to be missing a lot of features compared to a lot of routers.
Very nice hardware though, it's just a shame QNAP had to try and make an SD-WAN router instead of just a normal router.
My understanding was that the WiFi wasn't so great either, but maybe they've improved that via a software/firmware update.
Also, the name in Swedish isn't a great one...

I actually used to work for QNAP many moons ago and it seems like nothing much has changed, which is really a shame.
They make some nice hardware, but keep messing things up on the software side.

 

[soccerdmon10]

I've been looking around at this too. Asus ET12/XT12 are the closest without building your own. I've been reading that if you have a decent pc, with at least a dual-core cpu, you can add a couple PCIe cards and use pfSense to create your own router to keep the speeds. Or even set it up in a VM. Then use switches to connect multiple devices and APs for wifi connection to the new network. Not too cheap for upgrading wired performance, but still cheaper than a 10GbE system, for me at least.

I've been thinking of tinkering with getting something like this set up since I have the CM2050V modem. Same modem, but with voice connection for 'home phone'. I have an AX11000 as my main with a couple other routers in an AiMesh setup. I would eventually replace the other routers with the XT8 using the 2.5GbE connection for the mesh ethernet backhaul...eventually.

 

[Christos]

Why do you need a 2.5Gb router? Do you have internet connection faster than 1Gb?

 

[TheLostSwede]

The ET12 has been priced by Asus and it's not cheap at US$850 for a pair.

https://shop.asus.com/us/90ig05z0-ma1a2v-asus-zenwifi-pro-et12.html

 

[soccerdmon10]

Why do you need a 2.5Gb router? Do you have internet connection faster than 1Gb?

Yes, my current connection is supposed to be 1.3Gb down and 35Mb up. I might be switching to a fiber connection soon that offers 1.5Gb up and 1.5Gb down, so I would want something that can support the full speeds.

The ET12 has been priced by Asus and it's not cheap at US$850 for a pair.

Wow, ya, definitely cheaper to use pfSense on my current spare pc (plex) as a VM for what I am wanting. Thanks for that link!

 

[TheLostSwede]

Wow, ya, definitely cheaper to use pfSense on my current spare pc (plex) as a VM for what I am wanting. Thanks for that link!

Technically you only need one though, so it should be half that presumably.
It seems like they just jacked the price up another $50, as it's $899.99 now.

There's also this for $400...

https://shop.asus.com/us/90ig0780-ma1b0t-rog-rapture-gt-ax6000.html

 

[Tech Junky]

use pfSense on my current spare pc

I did a homebrew after getting sick of all the buggy FW every consumer grade router releases. I combined several functions into the PC to provide -routing / switching / firewall / WIFI / DVR / Plex / etc. getting rid of different devices those were being performed on in the process.

I didn't bother with PF though and went run of the mill Ubuntu and it's just a matter of installing some packages and configuring routing / iptables (fw). The flexibility though on the network side of selecting 1/2.5/5/10 GE NIC makes it easy to size to your needs. I'm running a Raid 10 setup for "NAS" functionality on the box that gets me 400MB/s which puts my network needs at 5GE. I picked up a QNAP 4 port 5GE card for $200 and split the ports for WAN/LAN as needed.

I was running a QNAP AC2600 card internally as the AP functionality until upgrading to AX and just plugging an AP into one of the ports using a NWA210AX and get 1.5gbps over wifi with it internally since it has a 2.5GE port on it.

The options are limitless when you take a "PC" and turn it into something else more functional.