I am hoping to get some input on how my home network should be amended, if at all. With Black Friday coming up, there's a chance to get nice discounts on device replacements.
My current setup looks like this:
[Internet] - 500/50 Mbit/s cable - [Edgerouter Lite] - 1GbE - [Unifi 16-XG] - 10Gbit/s - [Mikrotik CRS-226] - 1Gbit/s - [2x Unifi AP-AC LR + most devices throughout the house, including a couple of Netgear and Edgerouter switches]
I currently have 3 VLANs with some routing between them taking place at the Edgerouter Lite.
Most devices (Roku, Steam link, office PC etc) are connected to the Mikrotik via 1Gbit/s cat6 cables. So far only the server in the basement (and the Mikrotik) is connected to the Unifi 16-XG via 10 Gbit/s fiber, but I plan on replacing most of the copper with fiber over the next few months. I will only get 10Gbit/s speed to my office PC, but am perfectly happy to run 1Gbit/s over fiber for other devices by deploying smaller switches with mixed copper and fiber.
I originally thought it would be a good idea to have everything Unifi instead of relying on three brands for my core network (Unifi, Edgerouter and Mikrotik). In that case, I'd get a Unifi USG as replacement for the ERL, and a Unifi switch to replace the Mikrotik. That should make configuring the network really simple, and I'd benefit from all the bells and whistles in the Unifi interface. However, my Unifi server is a VM on my main server in the basement. I am worried that this may be a vulnerable solution, and if I e.g. were to misconfigure the network so that the server or one of the intermittent switches loses connection, then fixing the network will be a big hassle. If a Mikrotik device were to be misconfigured, then I can simply connect a laptop to a working port and fix it from there, but I am not sure how this works when there's a centralised configuration tool sitting on a VM on my server...?
A nice alternative to a Unifi-only solution might be to keep the Unifi APs, but replace the Unifi 16-XG with a Mikrotik CRS317-1G-16S+RM (and perhaps even replace the CRS-226 with a CSS-326 since I only really need it to be a switch). If the CRS317 is powerful enough, if would be tempting to use it to replace the ERL as well so that my core network consists of only one router and one switch, and I only need to relate to two brands (Mikrotik + Unifi APs) for my core network.
Does anyone have any input to share? I guess the main pressure points are:
- Is fixing a broken network setup consisting of Unifi devices much more effort compared to fixing a network consisting of mostly stand-alone units?
- How does the Mikrotik CRS317 compare to the Edgerouter Lite wrt. routing performance?
- Is having everything Unifi a good thing, or will I lose functionality compared to basing my network on Mikrotik devices?
My current setup looks like this:
[Internet] - 500/50 Mbit/s cable - [Edgerouter Lite] - 1GbE - [Unifi 16-XG] - 10Gbit/s - [Mikrotik CRS-226] - 1Gbit/s - [2x Unifi AP-AC LR + most devices throughout the house, including a couple of Netgear and Edgerouter switches]
I currently have 3 VLANs with some routing between them taking place at the Edgerouter Lite.
Most devices (Roku, Steam link, office PC etc) are connected to the Mikrotik via 1Gbit/s cat6 cables. So far only the server in the basement (and the Mikrotik) is connected to the Unifi 16-XG via 10 Gbit/s fiber, but I plan on replacing most of the copper with fiber over the next few months. I will only get 10Gbit/s speed to my office PC, but am perfectly happy to run 1Gbit/s over fiber for other devices by deploying smaller switches with mixed copper and fiber.
I originally thought it would be a good idea to have everything Unifi instead of relying on three brands for my core network (Unifi, Edgerouter and Mikrotik). In that case, I'd get a Unifi USG as replacement for the ERL, and a Unifi switch to replace the Mikrotik. That should make configuring the network really simple, and I'd benefit from all the bells and whistles in the Unifi interface. However, my Unifi server is a VM on my main server in the basement. I am worried that this may be a vulnerable solution, and if I e.g. were to misconfigure the network so that the server or one of the intermittent switches loses connection, then fixing the network will be a big hassle. If a Mikrotik device were to be misconfigured, then I can simply connect a laptop to a working port and fix it from there, but I am not sure how this works when there's a centralised configuration tool sitting on a VM on my server...?
A nice alternative to a Unifi-only solution might be to keep the Unifi APs, but replace the Unifi 16-XG with a Mikrotik CRS317-1G-16S+RM (and perhaps even replace the CRS-226 with a CSS-326 since I only really need it to be a switch). If the CRS317 is powerful enough, if would be tempting to use it to replace the ERL as well so that my core network consists of only one router and one switch, and I only need to relate to two brands (Mikrotik + Unifi APs) for my core network.
Does anyone have any input to share? I guess the main pressure points are:
- Is fixing a broken network setup consisting of Unifi devices much more effort compared to fixing a network consisting of mostly stand-alone units?
- How does the Mikrotik CRS317 compare to the Edgerouter Lite wrt. routing performance?
- Is having everything Unifi a good thing, or will I lose functionality compared to basing my network on Mikrotik devices?
It seems as if my worries were mostly unwarranted. Since noone has even hinted that I may be better off with a Mikrotik setup, I guess I'll just transition to Unifi, beginning with the USG. I may keep my Mikrotik for a while as my primary 1Gbit/s switch, though, since it has 10Gbit uplink (the 48 port Unifi is a bit overkill for my use).