looking for a good router (no-wifi) to replace Verizon box

S

s10010001

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Sep 17, 2002
Messages
7,505
Hello,

I am looking to replace my crappy FIOS router out for my own. I finally got around to running an ethernet to my ONT outside so I can have Verizon swap my internet connection form COAX to Ethernet. (NAT problems galor)



Now, I have a pair of 802.11N Dual band Access points (POE) mounted in my house so I have zero use for the wireless function on the router. (and, it buried in a small network rack) Im wonder if I can save some money, or get more bank for my buck going with some higher end router with no wifi. (business grade maybe?) DDWRT would be cool, or a robust stock firmware. Ohh 8 ports would be cool

...or am I better off just getting a good ~$100 home router and disabling Wifi?


Thank guys.
 
A couple of years ago I gave up trying to find a wired-only router to replace the BEFSX41 that served me well for years and got a Netgear WNDR4500 and disabled the wireless portion of it. It has worked well so far as a work-from-home router but it does only have 4 1Gb ports so may not work for you.

A friend of mine recently recommended a TP-LINK Archer C7 AC1750 for both wired/wireless functionality after he switched at his house. Not really what you are looking for either since it has wireless and 4 Gb ethernet ports as well.

It's tough to find a home router without wireless built in.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
I(illa Bee said:
Interesting.. I am actually using Ubiquiti Access points... I don't know why I didn't think of using their routers... Have you used them how to they compare to a home all-in-one router?


Arak, yea I may end up just using a TP-Link or Asus router + a gig switch and turning off wifi.
Click to expand...

the ubiquiti is a better choice i have an 8 port edge max and 4 ubiquiti ap it works really well the ubiquiti is also cheaper than the asus or tp-link router you would need...

The difference between a home router and the semi commercial router from ubiquiti is night and day this router handles so much more bandwidth than my asus router i have at home i am thinking about getting one of these to replace it.
 
I(illa Bee said:
Interesting.. I am actually using Ubiquiti Access points... I don't know why I didn't think of using their routers... Have you used them how to they compare to a home all-in-one router?


Arak, yea I may end up just using a TP-Link or Asus router + a gig switch and turning off wifi.
Click to expand...

The Edgerouter doesn't have the most user friendly interface, but if you don't mind that or just need a basic config, I highly recommend it.
 
The Mediatek MT7621 platform is very impressive in terms of performance so I'd suggest that you'd go for that or the Turris Omnia.

Edgerouter X is based on that SoC and also runs OpenWRT which is much nicer than DD-WRT however you might find lack of USB a bit limiting. You have the WITI Board which also offers SATA and USB, ongoing work for the SoC is also being done in FreeBSD so you might be able to run it later on.

https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...l_XIKHVyWDZAQ2SsIEw&ei=8Z-ZVr68N-X7ywPcrLaACQ

Might also be of interest, less RAM but if you're going main for a router it'll be more than fine. Make sure you get the B1 hardware revision. Check the OpenWRT wiki page if you want some numbers or need more information.

I have a few D-Link DIR-860L B1 boxes myself running at different locations (VPN, QoS and a few more services) and they've been working very good so far. Just managed to add automounting of exFAT filesystems to OpenWRT, dd showed about 50Mbyte/s in write speed ;-)

Given the pricing I'd pick that over the ERX because of the ability to expand.
 
Last edited:
I'll +1 the Ubiquiti. That and an inexpensive switch are almost all anyone needs. The GUI on the Ubiquiti isn't the greatest, if you want to do anything fancy you'll need to do it in command line.

If you want something a bit easier to work with, build an Untangle box. Does a lot of what the enterprise equipment does and the OS is free. You can put together something not horrible for a few hundred.
 
Azrak said:
A friend of mine recently recommended a TP-LINK Archer C7 AC1750 for both wired/wireless functionality after he switched at his house.
Click to expand...

I'm running one of these as a dual 2.4/5 ghz AP + Switch with NAT/DHCP disabled. Been pretty solid so far:

Code: 
System Up Time:	
128 days 01:49:32

Although I haven't really been stressing it. Can't say how good it is as a pure router though.
 
There's however no point in getting a C7 (or any other QCA MIPS platform) that uses 11ac apart from the ARM-based ones compared to the Mediatek SoC as it's roughly twice as fast for the same or even lower price.
 
PornoSatan said:
I'm running one of these as a dual 2.4/5 ghz AP + Switch with NAT/DHCP disabled. Been pretty solid so far:

Code: 
System Up Time:	
128 days 01:49:32

Although I haven't really been stressing it. Can't say how good it is as a pure router though.
Click to expand...

i have one of the 8 port edge routers running my motels internet it has been going for almost a year with only a blackout causing the outage... average of 20-60 clients at any given time.
 
The only thing you can be proud if is that you're running firewalls with known vulns ;-)
That said, my "oldest" D-Link has an uptime of 38d, thankfully I migrated to PolarSSL/mbedtls so I don't have to update it that frequently. Haven't tried the SQM QoS but it seems very interesting, I'm still using the good old CoDeL-stuff.
 
So I see the Ubiquiti EdgeRouters have their own build in firmware to manage them (as you would expect). Can that same firmware inside the router manage their APs?

I know I have the have the controller software loaded on my server to manage my Ubiquiti APs, it would be cool if their router could manage them. (I keep loosing the server config when I forget to back it up, so I have to reset my routers every time I want to change something... haha)


EDIT: Moore googling, it looks like it will not, you still need a Unifi controller... (aka a computer)
 
Last edited:
I have a friend who uses the ubiquiti routers, he swears by them, and as an IT professional for the us government he knows his stuff. he does work from home and he has no issues at all. I would think you would be able to manage them from the router.
 
diizzy said:
No, you can't and the EdgeOS is kinda iffy...
Click to expand...

What do you mean by iffy it is Linux based and it is a lot better than it used to be. And if he does not want to use edge OS if I remember right both ddwrt and tomato had versions for the ubiquiti routers... Only issue was ddwrt required a commercial equip license...
 
diizzy - I'm also curious on what you mean by iffy about EdgeOS? I'm in the market for a ER-PRO8 but haven't pulled the trigger yet.
 
thegrinch said:
diizzy - I'm also curious on what you mean by iffy about EdgeOS? I'm in the market for a ER-PRO8 but haven't pulled the trigger yet.
Click to expand...
He's the resident anti-Ubiquiti poster, so take anything he says on the matter with a grain of salt...
 
+1 for Ubiquiti
Running 3 sites with Edgerouter 5 POE and 1 site with a Edgerouter Lite, been rock solid.
all sites have a minimum of 1 Unifi UAP-PRO or a Unifi UAP

The latest firmware's fixed some of the missing functions that i wanted.

if you want a switch i would recommend the Zyxel GS1910-24, it does what you need and is cheap.

im looking at one site to install a Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch LITE 24, just to get to play with it.
 
thegrinch said:
diizzy - I'm also curious on what you mean by iffy about EdgeOS? I'm in the market for a ER-PRO8 but haven't pulled the trigger yet.
Click to expand...

I have had
almost every router interface there is EdgeOS is a very nice interface albeit a bit complicated for some parts.

I have used cisco command line in my CCNA classes at home i used linksys then linksys fixed by ddwrt i have played with sonicwall and pfsense i have used asus and tp-link and netgears interfaces. EdgeOS is not that bad get the er-pro8 you will be happy as it will likely be a set and forget it is even there i have never had my ubiquiti lockup and need rebooting. the asus, tplink, and linksys w/ddwrt(multiple times daily) all would lockup instantly if put under the load this edge router is.

I have used
linksys wrt54g v4 with ddwrt
netgear with ddwrt
linksys e2000 with ddwrt
linksys wrt54g2 with ddwrt (giant piece of shit)
Tp-link archer c7
asus u68ac
AirRouter
EdgeRouter POE

Honestly if i was going to setup a home internet right now EdgeRouter X and an UAP-AC-LITE
 
The erl is a great router. The latest firmware has come a long way from v1.5. It is a lot easier to setup then it was in earlier firmwares.
 
Thanks for the info guys - I'm comfortable with CLI (from my CCNA days, albeit a bit rusty) so the ER looks pretty good.

My topology will be ERPRO8->HP2530 POE 48port switch-> 2 Ubiquity AP-AC PROs for wireless.
 
Another vote for the ubiquiti edgerouter x. Very nice wired only router with a great interface. No issues with it whatsoever so far!
 
I grabbed a old watchguard firebox off ebay and tossed pfsense on it for my FiOS routing. I run unifi ap's for wifi work. You would need a switch though.
 
For a standard home setup you do not need the CLI on the edgerouter.

Great hardware and very fast. I have tons of them deployed and they are rock solid.
 
@ Blue Fox
Seriously, I did recommend ER X hardware however the ERL (3-port) does have some issues such as the filesystem getting randomly corrupt upon power outrage and it's not that fast if you for some reason can't use hardware acceleration. There has also been quite a few reports about the software being buggy on the ER X which you should have in mind.

@ rma
The Zyxel GS19**-series are indeed very good value switches with a decent UI.

@ Lunas
Indeed, it's very hard to make a interface perfect although I do think Mikrotiks is quite nice. The ERL does have a few issues which makes it a bit not as attractive mainly price/performance and the filesystem issue. UBNT isn't that fast when it comes to security advisories either unfortunately...

@ Grentz
The hardware itself works fine except for the USB storage and the concerns I mentioned earlier about it.
 
Last edited:
+1 pfsense, or a used older cisco if you're that kinda guy

If you're going to go through the trouble to replace turnkey boxes, do it right

Closed source/binary-blobbed hardware on the WAN can lick my nuts, see juniper and fortinet for recent examples of massive fails. I like ubnt's wifi stuff, but do you really think a tiny company with their weird history (finances, 'interesting' customers) isn't pwned too? /rant
 
SO where does the Unifi Security Appliance fit in? Am I missing something or is it a router as well? (Along with the firewall/security)

Is there no basic firewall on the ERL or ERX?
 
I(illa Bee said:
SO where does the Unifi Security Appliance fit in? Am I missing something or is it a router as well? (Along with the firewall/security)

Is there no basic firewall on the ERL or ERX?
Click to expand...

The USG is essentially the same as the ERL, but MUCH more basic in what is easily configured. It is designed to be managed by the Unifi Controller (which also handles APs, Switches, etc. in the Unifi Family) and has no direct web gui beyond basic WAN config. With the USG you really can only configure basic WAN setup (DHCP/Static/PPPoE), DHCP, Port Forwarding, and basic VPN.

You can inject more advanced configurations by modifying the config file on the controller that gets sent to the USG, but that is more of a hack.

It is more geared towards basic installs that can be centrally managed. Though quite frankly would fit a lot of people's needs
 
Grentz said:
The USG is essentially the same as the ERL, but MUCH more basic in what is easily configured. It is designed to be managed by the Unifi Controller (which also handles APs, Switches, etc. in the Unifi Family) and has no direct web gui beyond basic WAN config. With the USG you really can only configure basic WAN setup (DHCP/Static/PPPoE), DHCP, Port Forwarding, and basic VPN.

You can inject more advanced configurations by modifying the config file on the controller that gets sent to the USG, but that is more of a hack.

It is more geared towards basic installs that can be centrally managed. Though quite frankly would fit a lot of people's needs
Click to expand...


Thank you for that info.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top