Question A Few Questions About Upgrading My 1Gbit Network To 2.5G And WIFI6

[Cyber_Akuma]

Currently I have an Asus RT-AC66U connected to a Netgear GS116E, although it's being used as an unmanaged switch (It used to be a GS116V2 but it died and that's the replacement Netgear gave me over the warranty). I am only using a single LAN port on the router to connect to the switch, and all of my wired devices are plugged into said switch.

It's been working out fine for years, especially when I had slower cable, but that RT-AC66U is getting a bit old these days and my internet speeds have been steadily increasing since, and I recently got gigabit fiber now. I got this router about 12 years ago and it's showing it's age, it can barely handle my current fiber connection and tends to drop in speed often.

So I have been looking to replace it, but on top of trying to decide on a replacement router I would need to replace my switch too if I wanted my newer systems to communicate at 2.5GBps speeds with each other, even if my internet only goes up to 1Gbit for now, and for all I know I might upgrade that in the future too since the fiber ISP my area supports at least up to 5Gbit.

But it seems to not be as easy as just swapping out my router and that switch for a 2.5Gbps (or faster) model, at least not unless I want to pay a ridiculous amount.

There don't really seem to be 16 port switches available with 2.5+ ports for anything under $600-800, especially from brands like Netgear. But I also came to the realization that I only have a handful of 2.5Gbps devices and the vast majority of my equipment is still 1Gbit at best, and some older stuff even slower, so I don't really need 16 ports, at least not anytime soon. 8 port 2.5 switches seem to be a lot more reasonable in price, like the Netgear MS308.

But then that brings me to a new problem. Most routers seem to have a single 2.5Gbps port, which seems intended to either be the WAN port, or a single LAN port. Majority don't seem to have more than one 2.5Gbps port, a few have two, almost none seem to have all four.

I tried looking up what good routers there are which have at least the WAN port and one of the LAN ports both be 2.5Gbps or higher, and came across several results that were mostly Asus and TP-Link. Personally I am not a fan of TP-Link so unless there is some glaring problem with Asus routers I would prefer to stick with those.

The two big ones I ran into were the Asus RT-AX88U PRO and the GT-AX6000. That first one seems to be the closest upgraded version of what I already have, and the second is a "gaming" router... whatever that means. Yeah I game, but I do a lot of other things too, and it makes me worried if whatever "gaming" nonsense is in that router would actually cause problems. Also the TP-Link Archer BE550 seemed to come up a lot. Certainly an interesting looking device, and it appears to have a full four 2.5G ports somehow while not costing significantly more than the others? But I am not so sure about the quality of the router itself (or if it would even fit in the place my current RT-AC66U takes), plus it's UI looks miles behind Asus's UI that I am far more used to, even seems behind the UI my previous Linksys WRT54GS had (not really looking to use 3rd party firmware).

So which one out of those three would you recommend? Or would it be neither and I would be better off with a different WIFI6 router? (Preferably not much more expensive than those three already are).

Would my plan to connect an 8 port 2.5Gbps switch to a 2.5 Port and my old 16 port Gigabit switch to the other gigabit ports on the router work out as if I just had a single 24 port switch as far as everything that's plugged into them is concerned? Would I be able to keep that current 16 port switch I have to one of the router's 1Gbit ports and just connect a second 8 port 2.5Gbps switch to the router's 2.5Gbps LAN port?

Also, is there any way to export my MAC address list/names from my current router? I know that I likely can't upload that list back into the new router, but I would at least like a listing of what mac address is what device rather than starting over hunting down what mac address is what and writing it down into the router again.

 

[bill001g]

I would not worry about a router that has 2.5g or faster ports until you are actually going to get a internet connections that fast. There is very little need that fast a internet connection unless you are downloading 24 x7. Even 1gbit is way more than most people need.

Many times you are limited by the download server on the internet....sometime artificially so someone with a fast internet connection does not hog all the bandwidth.

Traffic between your machine in the house do not go to the router all the traffic stays in the switch. That also means you need to be a big careful where you place things. All ports on a say a 8 port switch can run at full speed. In the case of a 1gbit switch that is 1gbit up and 1gbit down on all port for a total bandwidth of 16gbit.

What you might do is connect the 2 switch directly together. That way you would at least have 2.5g between the switches. Only connect 1 to the router or you will get a loop. Again the speed to the router is not a issue since you internet connection will be the limit.

For routers I would buy a fairly inexpensive one with gigabit ports. "gaming" stuff is marketing and all it means is they loaded some preconfigued QoS setting with the server IP of the bigger games. You can do it all your self.......not that I would recommend it because it greatly reduced the router throughput because of the overhead. You also never need if because traffic will never queue unless you are using 100% of the bandwidth which is unlike on modern high speed internet

You likely want wifi6e they have come down a lot since wifi7 came out. Wifi6 tends to not be any faster than wifi5 because of the problem running 160mhz radio bands and the issue involving avoiding things like weather radar.

 

[Cyber_Akuma]

I would not worry about a router that has 2.5g or faster ports until you are actually going to get a internet connections that fast. There is very little need that fast a internet connection unless you are downloading 24 x7. Even 1gbit is way more than most people need.

It's not just for the internet but also for my systems communicating with each other over the LAN.

Only connect 1 to the router or you will get a loop.

What do you mean buy this exactly? Will they be separated or on different networks or something if I connect both switches to the router?

 

[lantis3]

2.5Gbps port bandwidth = 300M Bytes/s

What kind of apps you use will read/write that much of data per second all the time?

You should setup / use a NAS if you do have that much of data needed to be transferred like doing video editing. Yet that has nothing to do with your routers speed/bandwidth, because you are just transferring data on your LAN - local network between devices, that never flows out to the internet through your router as mentioned by @bill001g

Watch 4K video stream requires only 30Mbps for Youtube/Netflix. 100Mbps for 8K videos,

Network loop
https://www.baeldung.com/cs/broadcast-storms

 

[Cyber_Akuma]

I tend to transfer files over the system a lot through the network, and would rather not use the sneakernet protocol instead.

Can you please help with advice on the things I asked?

 

[lantis3]

Would my plan to connect an 8 port 2.5Gbps switch to a 2.5 Port and my old 16 port Gigabit switch to the other gigabit ports on the router work out as if I just had a single 24 port switch as far as everything that's plugged into them is concerned? Would I be able to keep that current 16 port switch I have to one of the router's 1Gbit ports and just connect a second 8 port 2.5Gbps switch to the router's 2.5Gbps LAN port?

Yes

 

[lantis3]

Also, is there any way to export my MAC address list/names from my current router

Run Advanced IP scanner and save result as a html file, it will have ip & mac address table

 

[Cyber_Akuma]

Run Advanced IP scanner and save result as a html file, it will have ip & mac address table

My router lets me assign a name to any device connected to it by a mac address, I was wondering if I could somehow export that list. It's so I know what mac address is tied to what device, just the mac addresses themselves without the names I gave them on the router isn't very useful to me.

 

[USAFRet]

My router lets me assign a name to any device connected to it by a mac address, I was wondering if I could somehow export that list. It's so I know what mac address is tied to what device, just the mac addresses themselves without the names I gave them on the router isn't very useful to me.

How many devices?

It might be easier just to manually document them, rather than relying on a script, that may not/probably won't import into a new device.

 

[lantis3]

You can right click on that mac / ip address or name pairs webpage on the router and save it as a mhtml single file and open it, with either Chrome or Firefox. No Advanced IP scanner required.

To use Firefox and save webpage as a single file, you will need SingleFile add-on

SingleFile â Get this Extension for ð¦ Firefox (en-US)

Download SingleFile for Firefox. Save an entire web pageâincluding images and stylingâas a single HTML file.

addons.mozilla.org

 

[bill001g]

It's not just for the internet but also for my systems communicating with each other over the LAN.

What do you mean buy this exactly? Will they be separated or on different networks or something if I connect both switches to the router

The router is not involved with communication between lan devices. If your devices had static IP you could run with just switches.

lets say you have 2 switches. You have 2 options. You plug them directly together. You plug them both into the router. Note the router lan ports are actually a small switch it does not actually go to the router processor chip it stays on the asic based switch.

Which is the best option all depends on how your traffic flows. And if you can connect the 2 switches together with a 2.5g port it will be faster than going 1gbit to the router and 1 gbit back to the other switch.
It all depends how much traffic is going between devices that are on different switches. You want if possible to keep device that talk to each other on the same switch.

The key thing that won't work is connecting both switches to the router and also connection them to each other. This will cause a broadcast loop and take everything down. If you are lucky the switches will detect this and disable one of the ports.....might as well not do it incorrectly and hope hardware will save you.