static routing for nas on wds setup

[nfastsagar]

I have a 2 router setup. The first (main) router is a asus rt ac5300, connected to the ISP and has a LAN address of 192.168.1.1 2nd router is tplink WR841N (address 192.168.1.2), which is wirellessly connected with main router with WDS following these steps below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21tRWUvsQ34
i hard wired a pc and nas (ds418play) on the 2nd router. my goal is to get Ethernet speed between my pc and nas while they are both connected to the internet. but i am getting slow (wifi like) speed even though they are connected into same router. i am guessing the data flow is "pc ↔ 2nd router 1st router ↔ 2nd router ↔ nas". but i want pc ↔ 2nd router ↔ nas, less node more speed. i have no idea how to do ip routing. if anyone can help me that would me great.

 

[Ralston18]

Your network will only be as fast as the slowest component. So if you are using a wireless connection, then that will limit performance accordingly.

And you may have other problems as well. For example if both routers are providing IP addresses there will be confusion on the network. Only one router should be providing IP addresses.

Are you in a situation where there is the need for a wireless connection between the two routers? I.e., there is no apparent way to run an ethernet cable from the location of the 1st router to where you have placed the second router.

You may be able to use Powerline adapter instead. Is that viable?

 

[Solandri]

I didn't watch the full video, but the diagram at 7:40 makes it look like your 1st router is the main router, and your 2nd router is just acting as a WiFi bridge (i.e. the gateway on your PC and NAS is still the 1st router). In that case, sometimes info transferred between your PC and NAS (connected to the 2nd router) will be sent via the gateway (1st router).

It's also possible using the 2nd router in this way sets it up as a dumb bridge, where all traffic it gets over its LAN ports is reflected over WiFi to the gateway. Which would slow it down to WiFi speeds.

I see two easy ways to fix this.

- Buy a switch. Connect the PC and NAS to the switch, plug the switch into the 2nd router. The switch will realize the traffic between the PC and NAS can occur entirely within the switch, and "won't bother telling" the 2nd router of the data transfer. So it should transfer at the full speed of the switch.

- Or reconfigure your network so the 2nd router is a WiFi client, not a bridge. I'm not sure if the WR841N supports this mode (looks like TPLink calls it AP client mode). In this mode, the WR841N acts like a router, getting Internet via WiFi instead of its WAN port (the WAN port is unused) This will cause its LAN ports to retain their switch-like abilities, including not automatically forwarding all LAN traffic to WiFi. The downside of this is that the 1st and 2nd router will be separate networks. Devices connected to the two will have different IP address ranges and gateways. Devices on the 2nd router can see devices on the 1st router (just like they can see the Internet). But devices on the 1st router cannot see devices on the 2nd router (they're protected by the 2nd router's firewall).

https://www.tp-link.com/ch/faq-442.html

Edit: Also be warned that I believe the WAN port on the WR841N is only 100 Mbps. Not really a big deal if you're connecting it to the Internet via WiFi. But in the event that you ever use its WAN port and your get Internet service faster than 100 Mbps, it will not be able to give full Internet speed to devices connected to it.

 

[nfastsagar]

thanks for all the helpful advice. switch sounds good. but can a cheap switch be able to do that? if u know any cheap/ budget switch with that capability please let me know. for now i am connecting my nas and pc directly via ethernet cable. both has second network connection (wifi on pc, extra lan port on nas) which went to the routers. pc internet was getting delayed (3-5 sec).ping test from google showed a lot "request time out error". but i think i fixed it for now. i am posting a rough diagram of my setup. bit messy but it works. let me know if anything else can be done. https://imgur.com/XBIU49p

 

[nfastsagar]

Your network will only be as fast as the slowest component. So if you are using a wireless connection, then that will limit performance accordingly.

And you may have other problems as well. For example if both routers are providing IP addresses there will be confusion on the network. Only one router should be providing IP addresses.

Are you in a situation where there is the need for a wireless connection between the two routers? I.e., there is no apparent way to run an ethernet cable from the location of the 1st router to where you have placed the second router.

You may be able to use Powerline adapter instead. Is that viable?

my house is months old. powerline adapter would be great here. lets say good quality powerline adapter gives me more then twice bandwith then wifi (20-25 mb/s) but direct connection already giving me stedy 112mb/s. for now i fixed the issue by doing a little networking
https://imgur.com/XBIU49p
hopefully it will stay stable

 

[nfastsagar]

I didn't watch the full video, but the diagram at 7:40 makes it look like your 1st router is the main router, and your 2nd router is just acting as a WiFi bridge (i.e. the gateway on your PC and NAS is still the 1st router). In that case, sometimes info transferred between your PC and NAS (connected to the 2nd router) will be sent via the gateway (1st router).

It's also possible using the 2nd router in this way sets it up as a dumb bridge, where all traffic it gets over its LAN ports is reflected over WiFi to the gateway. Which would slow it down to WiFi speeds.

I see two easy ways to fix this.

- Buy a switch. Connect the PC and NAS to the switch, plug the switch into the 2nd router. The switch will realize the traffic between the PC and NAS can occur entirely within the switch, and "won't bother telling" the 2nd router of the data transfer. So it should transfer at the full speed of the switch.

- Or reconfigure your network so the 2nd router is a WiFi client, not a bridge. I'm not sure if the WR841N supports this mode (looks like TPLink calls it AP client mode). In this mode, the WR841N acts like a router, getting Internet via WiFi instead of its WAN port (the WAN port is unused) This will cause its LAN ports to retain their switch-like abilities, including not automatically forwarding all LAN traffic to WiFi. The downside of this is that the 1st and 2nd router will be separate networks. Devices connected to the two will have different IP address ranges and gateways. Devices on the 2nd router can see devices on the 1st router (just like they can see the Internet). But devices on the 1st router cannot see devices on the 2nd router (they're protected by the 2nd router's firewall).

https://www.tp-link.com/ch/faq-442.html

Edit: Also be warned that I believe the WAN port on the WR841N is only 100 Mbps. Not really a big deal if you're connecting it to the Internet via WiFi. But in the event that you ever use its WAN port and your get Internet service faster than 100 Mbps, it will not be able to give full Internet speed to devices connected to it.

thanks for all the helpful advice. switch sounds good. but can a cheap switch be able to do that? if u know any cheap/ budget switch with that capability please let me know. for now i am connecting my nas and pc directly via ethernet cable. both has second network connection (wifi on pc, extra lan port on nas) which went to the routers. pc internet was getting delayed (3-5 sec).ping test from google showed a lot "request time out error". but i think i fixed it for now. i am posting a rough diagram of my setup. bit messy but it works. let me know if anything else can be done. https://imgur.com/XBIU49p

 

[bill001g]

I have not read the details in all these posts so I may repeat others recommendations.

Looking at the diagram you are going to have massive issues trying to get that to work.

In the simplest form you will get a massive loop but I it is hard to say with wifi bridges in the mix. Fundamentally if you were to send a broadcast packet out on one interface it should go all the way around and come in on the other.....and then be forwarded out the original to start the loop again.

If this was all ethernet cables your network would likely lock up with massive traffic storms.

The only simple way to get this to work will be if you NAS is smart enough to run on 2 different networks.

If you could assign the network between the nas say to 192.168.100.x on the ethernet going to the pc and let it learn a IP on the internet connection going to the bridge it could be on 2 networks.

You would do similar with your PC with the direct ethernet on the 192.168.100.x network. They key to making this work is to leave the gateway IP address blank on this connection between the devices. Both the pc and the nas would have a gateway ip learned from the main router.