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Router query

AbsolutelyRidiculous

ULTIMATE Member
I am not sure if this is the right place, feel free to move it if not.

Looking to replace an Asus router.

Not really sure what to replace it with.

Needs to be able to support VLANS (so can have one for the kids, one for IoT, one for work (so prioritised) etc.

Firewall/AV would be good.
 
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Have a look at Synology Routers, they include some handy parental controls without any form of a subscription.
 
I would suggest buying an N100 from Aliexpress and then putting whatever router OS you want on there - Opnsense, IPfire, DDWRT etc.

If you do it this way you would have the same router for years, even decades and never need a hardware upgrade and the software side it will be bang up to date with security patches and new features. (As long as you buy a model with 2.5G ethernet ports).

Its about £100 for a N100 on Aliexpress for 4x2.5G ports. For the equivalent hardware inside a stock router you would be paying around £300.
 
That one looks good. Especially as it mentions it runs 10c cooler in the advert than regular N100s.

This is the one I bought and my CPU is currently running at 39c (but today is insanely hot).


But I think the one you've linked to would be potentially better given what the advert mentions about it running faster and cooler than stock N100 Nucs.

I would say buy a heatsink for whatever M2 drive you buy as M2 drives run insanely hot (mine was running at over 70c till I put a heatsink on it). You can get M2 drive heatsinks for around £5 from Aliexpress.

Also before you buy look on Hotukdeals for any Aliexpress vouchers as you could often knock off another £7.50-£10 using a voucher. Aliexpress have vouchers once per month and they get posted up on hotukdeals.
 
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How does it transmit the wifi signal for other devices?
(It says you need to add a wifi bundle but that link doesn't work.)
(I am new to Aliexpress.)
Thanks
 
You could get a WIFI 6E or Wifi7 card with external antennas for the WIFI. Or I just connect to multiple WIFI extenders via ethernet to get WIFI all around my house.

I do this so I can have all the wifi devices separate on their own VLAN.

If you want to get internal WIFI check the manual for the motherboard to see if it supports M2 or Mini PCIE WIFI cards.
 
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I'm also doing the N100 with proxmox on it. Which then runs VMs for the router software I want. It's drawing a whopping 10W of power too :D
I always think wifi and routers should be separate but each unto his/her own. I have Ubiquiti WiFi and my N100 running OPNSense/OpenWRT and Openmptcprouter. I doubt i'll ever swap that out, it has multiple 2.5G interfaces which should last a very long time.
 
I suppose the Asus could act as an AP which would be sufficient.

How does one know we are not buying a product which is stealing our data when buying from Alibaba?
 
I suppose the Asus could act as an AP which would be sufficient.

How does one know we are not buying a product which is stealing our data when buying from Alibaba?
you don't. this is why opensource is a good idea. of course there could be hardware level spying (Like example Intel ME or AMD's PSP, or the mystery chip that bloomberg went crazy over in Supermicro servers).
 
How does one know we are not buying a product which is stealing our data when buying from Alibaba?

Toptom or Qotom seem to be the two brands most go for in their Intel NUCs for using them as routers. Thousands have bought them, possibly hundreds of thousands for this purpose.

Here is the website for Topton that your first router is made from


I have two Topton routers as I have an N5105 that I upgraded last black Friday to an N100 as the deal was so good for it. I have not had any issues with either.

The only thing that could be the issue is the bios as it's an intel motherboard. You are putting your own router software on there and they monitor all incoming and outgoing traffic. You can see for yourself if it connects to somewhere dodgy in the logs. I have not seen anything.
 
I would suggest buying an N100 from Aliexpress and then putting whatever router OS you want on there - Opnsense, IPfire, DDWRT etc.

If you do it this way you would have the same router for years, even decades and never need a hardware upgrade and the software side it will be bang up to date with security patches and new features. (As long as you buy a model with 2.5G ethernet ports).

Its about £100 for a N100 on Aliexpress for 4x2.5G ports. For the equivalent hardware inside a stock router you would be paying around £300.

so a mini pc that's better than a actual 5G router ?
 
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