Hi Folks
I was planning to revamp my network setup. I had originally thought of going fully Unifi as follows:
UDM PRO --> Unifi 10G switch US 16 XG --> USW-24Port-POE --> USW 5 port switch (for media center) + 2 Unifi AP - UAP-AC-PRO
But after doing some research on UDM PRO and raising the same here on this forum and responses from Tom i have now dropped the UDM Pro and replaced it with PFsense, but will be running this on an old PC for now. Netgate is unbelievably expensive in my country. So my revised network would be
Pfsense of Local PC --> Unifi 10G switch US 16 XG --> USW-24Port-POE --> USW 5 port switch (for media centre) + 2 Unifi AP - UAP-AC-PRO
Anyways I was calculating the cost of this setup in terms of just switches and APs, it works out to about the equivalent of USD 1500. That’s a lot of money. That’s when i came across Toms video on Mikrotik 10g Switch. I researched the brand a bit more and what i seem to have found is that Mikrotik from a switches hardware point of view is same if not better than Unifi switches, but from a software perspective Unifi is way better and hence there is a steep learning curve with Mikrotik. Also the general feedback seems to be that Mikrotik Access Points are just not worth the effort compared to Unifi.
So what i was thinking was to use Mikrotik for the switches and stick to Unifi for Wi-Fi access points. For switches i thought of going with Mikrotik CRS328-24P-4S+RM as this has 4 10g ports and 24 Gig ports in addition to POE. For now i need only 4 10g ports so this would suffice, but if i need more i will have to purchase the CRS305-1G-4S+IN. But there could be an issue of availability of this model (Mikrotik CRS328-24P-4S+RM) in my country. if this is not available then i was thinking of going with the combination of CSS326-24G-2S+RM and CRS309-1g-8s 10g
Pfsense of local PC --> Mikrotik CRS328-24P-4S+RM --> Mikrotik hEX S RB760iGS (for media centre) + 2 Unifi AP - UAP-AC-PRO
OR
Pfsense of local PC --> Mikrotik CRS309-1g-8s 10g --> Mikrotik CSS326-24G-2S+RM --> Mikrotik hEX S RB760iGS (for media centre) + 2 Unifi AP - UAP-AC-PRO
But i have some doubts
- For me reliability is of utmost importance. Cant have the switches acting funny or misbehaving or failing. Are the models chosen good from a reliability point of view
Mikrotik CRS328-24P-4S+RM
Mikrotik hEX S RB760iGS
Mikrotik CRS309-1g-8s 10g
Mikrotik CSS326-24G-2S+RM - Is it ok to mix and match multiple vendors in a network setup. I have Pfsense, Mikrotek, Unifi ? Will this lead to issues later ?
Thanks
jinu