This is basically scratch-space for my plans (or dreams) of buying new home equipment. I have some smaller problems with my current equipment, and it would be nice to upgrade to something more modern.
Current issues
Router (which also is modem and access-point) is not wall-mountable and is currently placed in an awkward position.
Switch does not support link aggregation (IEEE 802.3ad), which my storage supports.
Current plans
I have no real need for a new router, as I can just as well run pfsense on a KVM instead. For that reason I can just buy a nice, wall-mountable AP. Likely with PoE. Since my current switch does not support PoE either, that needs to be a requirement for it. Since I would like to be a bit future proof, PoE+ would be nice, if not too expensive. As I currently have 5 slots, which are all filled, I would need at least 8 slots on it. Since I’m thinking of future-proofing with PoE+, I might want an SFP slot, since I might have some use for it later.
Requirement (AP)
- High speed 2.4GHz WiFi (802.11n)
- High speed 5GHz WiFi (802.11ac)
- High speed Ethernet (802.3ab)
- Power over Ethernet (802.3af)
- Wall-mountable
- (Nice to have) Improved Power over Ethernet (PoE+, 802.3at)
Requirement (switch)
- High speed Ethernet (802.3ab)
- Link aggregation (802.3ad)
- 8 Ethernet ports
- 1 PoE port
- (Nice to have) 8 PoE+ ports
- (Nice to have) Managed switch
- (Nice to have) 1 SFP port
Interesting hardware (AP)
The UniFi AC AP’s seem to be nice. Combining nice esthetics with seemingly good quality. A PDF describing them can be found here. Basically any of them will do, so I’ll probably go for the cheapest one.
Interesting hardware (switch)
There seems to be some nice UniFi equipment here as well. The US-8 only has 1 PoE port, but is managed, while the US-8-60W has 4 PoE ports, but is unmanaged. There is also the US-8-150W, which has 8 PoE+ ports, is managed AND has 2 SFP ports, but is twice the price. There is no clear answer if any of them supports link aggregation, but google seems to indicate that they all do.
Update 1
If seems like I have too few ethernet slots to run a router as a KVM. To make the above design work, I either need to change the switch to a router, or buy an additional router to handle the WAN traffic. Maybe I should reevaluate if I really should purchase a router + AP, but I’ve grown fond of the idea of having a UniFi AP. If I am to replace my old router I would need just a few additional features on top of the above switch features.
Requrements (router)
- DHCP-server
- DNS-server
- OpenVPN-server
Options
It seems like the only 8-port routers are rack-mountable ones, which means they are probably pretty big and loud. The options here are EdgeRouter and EdgeRouter PRO, where the only big difference for me is that the PRO version has 2 SFP ports, and is 1k SEK more expensive. The other alternative is buying a small router, the EdgeRouter X, which covers the router requirements, as well as a switch. The EdgeRouter X also supports 1 PoE port, which actually is enough for the AP. There is also the just slightly more expensive EdgeRouter X SFP, which has 5 PoE slots as well as a SFP one. In this case, it might be possible to go with one of the cheaper switcher, or possibly a 5-port one, which was would otherwise not be possible. What EdgeRouter should I use.
Update 2
Another really fun option would be buying a mini computer with 2+ NICs to run pfsense on. This would replace the need for a “normal” router. I’ve also found out that instead of supporting PoE on the router, you could just as well buy a PoE adapter. This would probably work better, as it doesn’t limit PoE to just one router or switch in the house. A good mini computer I’ve found is the PC Engine APU2/3, which is assembled and sold by Teklager in Sweden for really cheap. APU3 seems to just be APU2 specs with extra support for 3G/LTE. Since I won’t use radio on the router, it seems to just be a waste of money, so best bang for the buck should be APU2C4. This seems like the most fun solution. Running pfsense over some commercial software usually works best for me, since you can often personalize it a lot.
I still think the Ubiquiti UniFi UAP AC LITE would be a nice AP, but since I won’t commit to using only Uniquiti tools, I’m also open for other options.