I am looking to upgrade my home network. The network that I have right now is just the cable modem from my service provider and an Asus Router. The Asus router has one wan port and four 1GE ports. I like the UniFi switch looking at maybe the Pro twenty-four port PoE. One of the questions I have is what router can I replace my old one with that will allow a 10GE uplink between switch and router? I know the link to the service provider would not be 10GE. I don’t want the link between the switch and router to be over-utilized
You could build a system with a 10G card and run pfsense or whatever software you want for your router. Another option would be to buy this https://www.netgate.com/solutions/pfsense/xg-7100.html
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Wow the price of that box is literally eye watering ! Don’t know what your budget is but if I was in your shoes and wanted to avoid a heart attack I would buy some cheap new / refurb Lenovo desktop box and stick a quad port 10g NIC card in it.
That way you can at least re-purpose the box to run vms or some other task rather then having an expensive paperweight.
Previously I was running Asus routers with Merlin firmware, all I can say is it took me absolutely ages to get a stable pfsense build but the effort pays for itself.
Keep in mind the cost of the router box and Access Point done on the cheap will be virtually equal to a high end asus then you have to add on the switch. Costs quickly add up !
Thank you, that is the box I was looking at last night. I will say never used pfsense before but have heard many great reviews on the NetGate gear. I will need to find some videos to learn about pfsense. Do they have a lower pfsense model to get practice on the command line or learn how to setup? Or is it best to jump right in with the 7100 model?
The 7100 is the first model with 10G. So it really comes down to do you really need 10G or do you want it? A 7100 is going to be serious overkill for most homes.
I would review the test results on this page. Even though the X7100 has 10G ports doesn’t mean it can move data that quickly. Even switches have these limitations. Make sure you know your traffic flows so you can choose the correct appliance for your needs.
Are you doing internal routing between internal networks and planning on using pfsense to route all this internal traffic? If not, then 10gbe is way overkill (at least in the USA where many can barely get 70mbps down and 6mbps up).
At the price, there are a lot of fairly powerful used servers available that will have more processor, more ram, and ability to have multiple network cards including 10gbe. There are several E5-26xx 20 core servers on ebay in the $500 to $600usd range that would chew up about any amount of routing you could need at home.
And if you are not routing a ton of internal data, then I would start with something like an HP T620 Plus with four gigabit connections and probably boost it up to 8GB of RAM like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-T620-PLUS-Thin-Client-Quad-Core-GX-420CA-16-4-Intel-GB-4-port-pfSense-ready/193681430200
It takes DDR3L ram and I recently bought an extra 4GB for $10usd to upgrade mine to the 8GB suggested. For home I just can’t see where I would need more than this device unless I was doing a large amount of internal routing between networks. And in my case specifically, I’d use a Cisco router if this were the case because I have a good Cisco lab at home.
There are a few other multiport router devices on the market in that same $150 to $200 range.
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I don’t really understand the over-utilized switch/router comment. If you don’t have a 10G internet connection there is no benefit to having the 10G router link. As long as your switch supports 10G and you have 10G clients on your network connected to the switch you can pass data back and forth between them at 10G. You don’t need a faster router. Generally speaking switches have much higher internal bandwith than the actually connections themselves. For instance the 48 port poe ubiquity switch has 48 1gbps ports and 2 - sfp and 2 10g sfp+ ports but the Switching capacity is 176 Gbps, Non-blocking bandwidth: 88 Gbps, Forwarding rate: 130.944 Mpps. So, most people especially in a home scenario won’t stress this thing out.
If you do plan to have higher bandwidth internet connection in the future then maybe something with the 10G link does make sense though. The UDM Pro from is very cost effective and does have the SFP+ link.
You can build a pfSense FW/router from a custom build PC. Mine is my old core 2 / 5 Gig RAM with 2 NIC. Nothing more. Works like a charm
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If have a ton of devices connect up to the switch and the up link to the router only 1GE is very possible for that Link to get over-utilized because all the traffic has to use that uplink to the router.
I would also like to thank everyone for your input on my question and grateful for your information.