€1200 budget - What UniFi hardware should I purchase?

Computer Hardware & Server Infrastructure Builds
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Hi everyone,

tl;dr - I want to replace my network stack, likely with UniFi, and I need advice on what hardware to purchase. I’m also considering pfSense for the router.

Over the years, I’ve accumulated a mix of network hardware, and after recently building a house, I’m looking to replace my home network stack. I’m particularly interested in UniFi products and would appreciate recommendations on the best hardware to purchase. I’m also open to using pfSense for routing.

I’ve watched numerous videos from Tom on UniFi and have always thought, “That’s really neat! I’d like to be able to do that,” but I never noted the specific hardware.

While I’ve seen posts from 2023, I’m interested in the latest hardware options available.

Budget: Approximately €1200

Current Setup is approximately the following:

  • Cabling: CAT6 throughout the house, all connected to a patch panel in a 12U network rack.
  • Network Hardware: A mix of devices I’ve gathered over time:
    • Several managed L2 switches (24 x 1GbE with SFP, 8 x GbE POE+, 10 x 2.5GbE) and a few 4/5 port unmanaged switches (Cisco Meraki, TP-Link, Tenda, etc.)
    • OpenWRT running as the router for inter-VLAN traffic
    • A couple of WAPs running OpenWRT, each providing around 6 SSIDs with their own VLANs
    • Three internet connections with IPv4 public IP addresses via basic hardware routers
    • Approximately 8 VLANs for various purposes, including:
      IoT (3 VLANs: with internet, without internet, and with internet but isolated from everything else), Guest, Main, Printers, CCTV, Media, Management

Usage:

I have a few PCs, a handful of mobile phones, media devices (including several Alexas and FireSticks), IoT devices (switches, lights, vacuum, etc., that aren’t Zigbee), 2 printers, and guests with their laptops and mobiles. I also have several Raspberry Pi devices running dnsmasq, Tailscale nodes, and other projects. Currently, I have basic CCTV running, but I plan to expand to 6-8 x 2K or 4K cameras. I might create an ITX build using an old 3700X, RAM sticks, and HDDs I have lying around, just for fun. Additionally, I need to get or build a NAS.
So, a basic home network is what I have just with VLANs segmenting different things.

Goals:

I don’t have specific goals for the new setup, but I’m open to questions or pointers. My current setup is a bit of a mess and difficult to manage. For example, setting up a new VLAN takes a long time since I have to configure each device independently.

I guess L3 switch so I don’t have to get off the switch for inter-VLAN routing. I want inter-VLAN routing so HomeAssistant can live on one “safe” VLAN and establish connections to IoT devices on different VLANs, but I don’t want the IoT devices making connections out on some of the IoT VLANs.

I’m looking for advice on the actual hardware required to streamline my network. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

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I am not sure whether Unifi L3 switches are able to implement the last part of the sentence (not allow IoT devices to connect to other VLANs). This sounds more like something that a firewall would be able to do.
If you want firewall rules to work between VLANs then you probably can forget about L3 switches and they are expensive anyways.

You need to think about whther you want some 10Gbps networks in your rack, like for storage and for warm VM migration. Those two wouldn’t need to be routed. However, if you would want to route 10G traffic, you need get a router/firewall that is able to actually do that - and I don’t mean that it needs 2-4 SFP+ ports, it is also a matter of CPU. Getting pfSense to do 10G is hard. It will be able to route many parallel streams that add up to 10G, but individual streams that are 10G won’t fly through in that speed.

If you want some 10G devices, consider using SFP+ fiber optic, as it doesn’t runs as hot as RJ45 10G. A decent switch that is in your budget is a used US-XG-16. For the rest I’d see a Pro Max 24.

these two plus a decent Topton/Kingnovy 1U rackmount N305 with 2x SFP+ should fit your budget.

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When it comes to running cable, IMHO, I think it’s a good idea to have two runs from your switch to each point, you can easily set-up a LAGG for some redundancy, or use the port for an unplanned access point say. If you need to run some cable later somehow it’s more effort, the price is only marginal if you do it from the start.

I’d also run more cable then you think you need to various locations in the house, it just gives you a few more options for the future and makes life easier.

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