Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
OH I almost forgot.. do cables truly make any difference? I think I can get Cat6 from work ( I work in a data center )... not on the network side obviously lol.
Found out today after getting in my first HD.. you can run two network ports to it so it can use both to increase bandwidth.... at least that is what the youtube video said!
Is this correct? If so I will run two drops to each AP.. I have the cables and shoudl be easy to do.
I can't find anything in the docs to indicate that the 2nd ethernet port supports more than letting the AP act as a simple bridge/switch to hang another device off of it. But posts in their forums and elsewhere seem to indicate that a recent firmware update added LACP bond support. So, if your switch supports LACP, hunt around the Unifi settings and see what you can find and try it out.
Though do note that a single client is unlikely to see any gains, even if the WiFi link is > 1 Gb/s. The load balancing provided by bonded ethernet links really only comes into play with multiple clients, but even then they're still sharing/competing for the same radio space and bandwidth. A single session (e.g., a file transfer) between two nodes can't be split over the two ethernet links.
Can't hurt to run two lines regardless (I would). At the least, you have a backup line for almost no additional work and little cost.
View attachment 96809
EdgeRouter 4 with Comcast gigabit connection. You need to make sure you enable hardware offloading. By default it is off and it will limit your speed.
I have the cables to do it.. I got the switch you recommended.. do you know if it supports LACP? Putting the network on an APC Backup 1500 battery backup system also. I can get 2 cameras on the battery backup as well.. will be able to run it all if I lose power for a little while at least.. and surge protection. as well as brown out protection.
" Some EdgeRouters include a switch-chip, which makes them ideal when multiple router ports need to be present in the same subnet. Other routers are better at raw performance and are more suitable for an environment where switches are also present."
Saw a couple reviews where gigabit for internet was around 550.. multiple reviews saying this? Just want to make sure I got the right stuff.. currently Im only doing about 250 down.
Wasn't my recommendation (I'd not posted in this thread prior). Pretty sure all the EdgeSwitches support LACP, so you should be good on that end.
AFAIK the ER-X is good well past 250 Mb/s provided features that disable hardware offload are not being used (e.g., netflow, port bridging/bonding, the full list varies by model)
Having a switch integrated into the router is mostly irrelevant. It can help with some things if the switch(es) used are dumb (e.g., no management, VLANs, etc.). But otherwise, it's not going to make any real difference.
AFAIK the ER-X is good well past 250 Mb/s provided features that disable hardware offload are not being used (e.g., netflow, port bridging/bonding, the full list varies by model)
" Some EdgeRouters include a switch-chip, which makes them ideal when multiple router ports need to be present in the same subnet. Other routers are better at raw performance and are more suitable for an environment where switches are also present."
You really do only want to use an ER-X for basic firewalling, routing, and DHCP. And it is limited WAN to LAN and back to ~500Mbps by the connection between the CPU, which does the routing, and the switch chip, which runs the ethernet interfaces.
If you need more, yeah, the next step up is the Edgerouter 4- and after that, the $1500 Edgerouter Infinity.
I will say that this is both true and a bit misleading; no other router for the price, or close to it, is going to be 'more suitable'. The ER-4 is three times the price (or twice that of the ER-X-SFP), when on sale.
And unless you have 500Mbps+, there's no real difference, except that the ER-4 has no switch chip . I have the ER-4 only because I do plan on moving on to faster speeds and expanding my homelab habit. Otherwise, I'd happily run an ER-X-SFP (just for the console port!).
The misleading part is about other routers being 'more suitable' for an environment where switches are also present. This seems to imply that having a switch chip makes the ER-X less suitable, which is absolutely not the case- it makes no difference at all regarding whatever environment its placed in (what is hooked up to it). I think what they're saying is that if you have a switch, you're better off using it to switch, and just run WAN/LAN to/from the router, which I agree with. But if you also want to run other stuff to the ER-X, no problem!
Awesome.. that clears that up for me. I wanted to know what you think about running dual lan to the AC HD Access Point? This is an option a firmware update allowed. Although maybe not needed it's easy for me to run the second line now and possibly set them up to carry more bandwidth?
Get the lines run at least- as noted above, basic LACP is a failover/spillover solution, so it may or may not provide more bandwidth.
Typically the dual ports on these things are more for chaining, i.e., running one cable from the switch for multiple access points rather than running a cable to each from a switch individually. It looks like the UAP-AC-HD is the first to support LACP, which is cool, let us know if you get it to work!
I haven’t seen a reason to move the 5g signal off high.
is it automatic or do I have to configure a router port to work with a switch?
So, on protocols: layer 2 uses the MAC addresses on each NIC, and binds those to IP addresses through ARP. Essentially, when ethernet things first connect, they exchange everything they know, so it's automatic.
What you wind up doing with the switch is setting up VLANs so that less-trusted and untrusted clients (IoT, guests) are completely separate from your home network and attached resources.
But yeah, the switch will 'just work'
[edit: I don't have an Edgeswitch; I wish I'd gotten one, I have an Aruba S2500 that I got off Ebay, and it's like Cisco where the default state for the switchports is 'shutdown', so in fact, they didn't work until I turned them on, but just like the Edgerouter, follow the quick-start guide and you should be good!]
Setting up the 2nd access point now.. I can't find anything in the unifi software that let's the two links work together to increase bandwidth.. I wish I could find some proof this works before I go running two lines.
Upstairs AP for some reason isn't showing up when my devices look for wifi networks.