Lately my router seems to be struggling under all my devices and after some googling, it seems my Archer AX1800 isnt really meant for more than 20-40 devices and I’m currently sitting at 50 with heavy torrent traffic and a media server with 15-20 friends and family connected (typically not all at once of course).
I was looking at the Omada networking gear but then thought of trying OPNSense since I have pretty much everything I need on hand versus spending $400+ for the Omada stuff.
I’d like to run it on the media server since I have tons of compute/RAM available but my question is about the ethernet ports. My mobo has a dedicated 2.5Gb ethernet port built in and I have a second 2.5Gb card that I could toss in there as well, but my concern is that I may saturate the ports with all the additional traffic. My LAN is just 1Gb outside of these two PCs.
My other option is an unused Optiplex 3050 micro that I’ve installed a second ethernet port on but these would both be 1Gb ports.
Am I likely to run into saturation issues on the media server or should the 2.5Gb ports be more than enough to handle the load? Apart from the torrents and video streaming, the rest of the network is mostly typical devices like phones/tablets/consoles, 6 4K POE cameras connected to an NVR and frigate, and a bunch of IoT devices connected to Home Assistant.
I don’t necessarily mind using the Optiplex but I’d definitely prefer to keep everything in one place if I can. I realize that this means my network goes down if I restart the host but it has been a pretty rock solid setup and Proxmox means I can just restart individual containers/VMs rather than the host most of the time.
Edit: forgot to mention that I’m open to buying another quad port NIC for the server if recommended, but would definitely prefer to not spend money if possible. I was planning on using the current router in AP mode along with its ports for a switch and I have another 4 port 2.5Gb switch in the mix as well
I’m a bare metal guy when it comes to routers.
With that said you are fretting over something that probably won’t matter and that is the ethernet port speed. Your current router only has gigabit ports and the router can only pass data from the LAN to the WAN at speeds fast enough to saturate your internet connection speeds. The only advantage of 2.5gbps on the router would be IF you are running multiple vLAN’s. Since you are already using the router as a point for your switch to connect to the internet you are already limited to 1Gbps speeds.
Install OpnSense on the device you have available, set it up for the basics (DHCP reservations, IP addresses for the LAN, etc.), change the ip address in the original router to something that will work with your new setup and turn off the DHCP server. Then do some testing with your new router and see what you think. The old router will work as an ok access point and switch for now, grab a cheap switch to expand if you need to since the WAN port on the archer will no longer be usable.
Later on when you have some extra cash you can grow and expand where you feel the need. I’m using 10Gbps for my backbone with 1Gbps Dell 5548 PowerConnect switches for the majority of devices. You can get the PowerConnect switches on ebay for around 50 to 100 bucks easily. Most clients don’t need more than 1Gbps (even 4k cameras) and a 10Gbps card dropped in your server will give you great speeds for cheap. An Intel X520 10G NIC can be picked up for 30 bucks add a couple sfp+ modules for about 10 each plus an OM3 fiber cable for a few bucks and you are set for a while. If you get a Dell PowerConnect 5548P (the P makes it a POE switch) and you can power POE cameras and POE access points without anything extra and still use the rest of they’re ports for regular computer connections.