Welp, restarted the router and gdrive sync is maxing me out now haha
But did not fix all the other slow downs
EDIT:
Nope, wasn’t cable. Back to a crawl. Only thing new is the server. Been like this for a handful of days now and progressively gotten worse. Hmmm
So TNC is sending out data and I don’t know why or where.
Seems there isn’t anything causing issues on the fiber ISP side with my symmetrical line. I guess once the sync finishes I’ll remove the ethernet to the new server and see if that’s the issue. It was never an issue until the new server was connected which is the frustrating thing. Maybe the NIC is causing it. It’s a BRCM GbE 2P 5720-t Adapter 2-port
Let’s say it’s time to upgrade my router to handle more throughput without maxing out the CPU. What would you guys suggest? Something budget friendly. The new server has the 10gb SPF+ sister card.
Currently using a EdgeRouter Lite and a 24-port unmanaged switch. The fiber line comes in with a ONT device to the router then the router to the switch.
Mikrotik CRS305 or 309 for SFP+. Some QNAP QSW-M408 or M2108 for a mix of fibre and good old copper.
Little pricey but will see if any good deals come along.
Could this work? TRENDnet TEG-30262 10GB 24 Port & 2x SFP+ Switch unmanaged? Found one for $65 before you mentioned those.
EDIT
I just wish I could make sense of it. The NAS is only pulling down 20MB/s. The rest of my devices are pretty idle but getting dial up speeds. I hate networking so much sometimes.
Oh I see the CRS305 is a router with only 10gbit ports.
Snagged it for 50 shipped. Now to find a deal on that Mikrotik or similar router.
FWIW, I run a pfsense virtual machine on my NAS with two hardware ports passed through.
OPNsense is also a good option.
I had consider a pfsense VM years back but never got around to messing with it. Might try that route since i have that 4 port SPF+ card which can feed to that switch I just ordered. Since i have to use the nokia ONT box it only has gbit RJ45 and I can’t bypass it putting the fiber cable into something else.
So I guess if I did a pfsense VM it would have to go ONT → unused rj45 port on the broadcom NIC which I can see if it can be passed and not the entire PCIe. Then 10gbit sister SPF+ port out to the switch using the 24port rj45s to the rest of the stuff I have hooked up. If that makes sense
Their ONT box creates a double NAT issue as they share IPs which creates port forwarding issues. Even though I pay for a dedicated IP. I resolved it with some setting in the edgerouter and assume there will be something in pfsense to do it too. Then I assume I have to use VLANs to esxi. Not sure if that’s worth 150 bucks to just avoid or not haha.
Are SPF+ transceivers universal or not as I’ve not mess with that type of networking before? The fiber ones are dirt cheap like 10 bucks each but different brands. Whereas the SPF+ to rj45 are quite expensive as you need one for the source and one for destination.
I do have that spare 1U dell server I could probably use as a pfsense box. RIght now it’s just being used to power 2 ssd’s externally to the R710 server 
My setup is a mess but it works.
Exactly. Iirc pfsense defaults the first port to WAN and the second to LAN, so when you add them to the VM have the “device order” field set appropriately.
And on Intel NICs at least you can pass individual NIC ports around
Once I started using pfsense I never looked back 
Now the caveat with a virtualize router is there is no router if your box is off. And there’s no router at startup.
So I delay my other VM launches until the router VM had come online.
But I can snapshot and rollback my router. Which is neat ;), or even Switch it to an entire different OS.
I just wish I knew if my router it dying. It takes 10+ seconds to load a 300kb image someone posts on the forum. The pfsense image is going to take over an hour. Literally nothing is happening on my network as utilization is at 20%.
Devices connected
Pulling my hair out
Wish I had a laptop to just go from the ONT to it to test. It’s an old [
Ubiquiti Networks ERLite 3-port. Time to replace it.
Transceivers can be vendor locked. An intel NIC would require Intel-coded modules while the Dell-rebranded variant of the same NIC would want a Dell-coded module. Same on the switch end, but third-party switches such as those from Mikrotik are not locked and happily take anything.
A (singular!) RJ45 module is useful to plug a device with on-board 10 GBase-T into a SFP+ network. Do not use these on both ends! Use genuine fibre for long runs, or DAC for short runs.
A DAC is cheaper than two optical modules and a fibre patch cable. DACs may be coded, but generally aren’t; if you do run into a coding issue though, you’ll have to replace the whole cable rather than just a module on the offending side.
And whatever your needs, FS.com has the right product.
Ugh locked tech ecosystems haha. I did see 10Gtek SFP+ DAC Twinax Cables during my searches should work with dell/intel/TrendNet reading some reviews but isn’t a for sure thing, more case to case. Grabbed two for now to test when the gear gets here.
I was looking more into the CRS305 and while a great switch it’s not a good router in terms of if wanting to see 1gbit from a fiber internet. It has an underpowered processer and ram. Which led me to look more into the router I have. So it seems others have ran into sudden speed drops ending up being the router itself not being fully functional. Thankfully the router I have is now silly cheap. $20 shipped for one to just swap out and see if that’s it. As the router a week ago performed excellent, but is over 6 years old now. If that makes no difference then I’ll have to find a capable router with SPF+ or go the pfsense VM route as I’m a bit frugal and $300+ on a router just isn’t something I’m considering for my small homelab at this time.
I always order standard SFP+ with vendor programming from fs.com and use fibre patch cables.
About that router: I recently got a CRS326-24G-2S+IN by Mikrotik for my home network. 24x 1G plus 2x SFP+ at 200€/$ is hard to beat. And after a weekend of fiddling with the thing I have begun to like RouterOS. Available in both desktop and rack mount cases, BTW.
The +IN new on amazon is $180 and I can find the +RM for 140. Guess I can give it a go. I like the 24 ports so don’t need a switch+router. They seem to all use the low power CPU so can it handle gbit internet?
I use it strictly as a switch and it can definitely handle 10G. If your Internet uplink uses PPPoE, that might be a problem with low power/low single core performance CPUs.
Switching/routing is assisted by hardware, so the CPU is for the control plane and services only in my case.
There’s a Mikrotik community forum in case you want to check before buying.
Well, looks like my lowball offer of 90 bucks for a CRS305 was accepted. So I guess I’ll be using it for a router. I don’t think my internet uses PPPoE so I guess I should be good then.
Mind the difference between “switch” and “router”!
Mikrotik products generally switch at line rate when used under SwitchOS. (Switching is on the switch chip, not the management CPU!) And these are managed switches, which your silly cheap $20 unit is probably not.
Routing functions under RouterOS are fine if handled by the switch chip, not so great if handled by the puny CPU (there’s a reason why Mikrotik units cost some hundreds rather than some thousands…). Check the specification carefully.
This is a bit of a grey area, though. The small router style devices like the Hex have switching silicon in their SoC and the switch style devices like the CRS326 can run either SwitchOS or RouterOS.
Generally, yes. But e.g. for my CRS326 I found the SwitchOS to be so limited in functions - no usable SNMP, no reasonable management of multiple LACP bundles with VLANs on top, etc. etc. I was about to return the unit to the seller.
Then I decided to put some more work into it and try RouterOS - boy, what a difference. And the switching silicon is still used for forwarding, the management is generally pleasant and simple.
The single largest problem is the inconsistent and incomplete documentation! They have no - repeat: no - reference for their CLI. All they provide are “examples”. So you need to put your networking experience and their “examples” to work and eventually you will come up with a working configuration.
What made me keep it was when first everything worked and then the unit was even supported well by Observium and Rancid and I can use the UI for configuration and Rancid will pull and commit the CLI equivalent.
So my recommendation even for a switch would be to use RouterOS.
