Hello guys,
I am in need of a network refresh in a small business.
My requirements for a new router are:
It has to be router only, no wireless. since i’m going for access-points.
It will have to connect to over 300 devices at any given time. (They are not all necessarily downloading anything)
I was thinking about getting a TP-link router.
The configuration would be:
Router
|
Switch ---- Camera system
|
Switch ---- 24PC’s
|
Switch ---- Accespoint with 200 devices give or take
Would this router be “beefy” enough?
And one more question, should i be upgrading at all, for my current router is This one.
Also, how do i need to set the router? I’ve read about subnets, and was planning on using 192.168.5.1 with 255.255.252 as subnets. but how do i set this up
Ps. the Access points are wireless-ac Routers set as access points
Thanks in advance.
If your current router is working fine e.g. fast, reliable, etc then there is no need to upgrade. If you want to upgrade then the TP-link router you have found looks fine and almost any recognizable brand router should work fine as well. If you get the TP-link router you may need to disable DMZ mode on the last port.
In terms of setup, if you have a DHCP server you will need to disable the internal one. if not leave the internal one on. then just have each switch go into the router and attach the WAN line.
If you don't already have sub-nets setup you may just want to leave that. If you want to setup sub-nets just look for videos/guides.
Personally at the small business I do networking for, we opted for a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter 5, however as far as I can see all of their routers are fairly similar. I found the control panel was a nightmare and documentation for it was minimal, however their large community made cli administration a breeze. We also use their Unifi AC Access Point, which again is performing extremely well and I suggest at least having a look at Ubiquiti's products.
Despite it being a far smaller network, our current situation is a subnetwork within another companies network (nature of the business), and consumer routers would die completely within months, however this one has not let us down for a year now.
I will leave someone more experienced than myself to advise on your current/proposed router and their setups. As ollierose said, if your current router is fine then there's no need to throw more money at the situation.