MikroTik Cloud Router Switch CRS109-8G-1S-2HnD-IN

I discovered Mikrotik hardware while looking for a firewall for a small business. When you're looking for something that does all that the Mikrotik RouterOS promises, the price is is so good that you just have to give it a try. After you mess with it for awhile you find that the feature set makes it all worth it.Important note: If you are just looking for a home device that you plug in and it works, this will probably do what you need, but the configuration may be too much for users without some hefty networking knowledge, and you can pay less for a more consumer-grade device with that much functionality. That said, it's a good price for a device to learn on, should you want to learn networking, and there's plenty of help on their forums to get you through whatever it is you don't know (because you can't know everything).I bought this model for home use after messing around with a couple of the 24-port versions, and I have only one complaint, if you want to call it that. The one issue I have is that the WiFi on this unit is ONLY 2GHz, and 5GHz is not available. Most consumer-grade WiFi access points give you both and never really explain what the difference is, so you take it for granted and probably don't have it set up right. 5GHz tends to have less range, but better transfer speeds. 2GHz has better coverage, but your uploads and downloads aren't as fast. I like the wider coverage, but my primary in-house access point is another device with supports 5GHz, and this is my WiFi when I'm in the garage or just outside the house. Because speed.Beyond that, gigabit Ethernet is good, having 8 ports is good, and RouterOS is amazing functionality for whatever you need to set up. I set up static-assigned IPs with DHCP and NAT port forwarding with no trouble. With some searching and reading I established a site-to-site VPN (between 2 Mikrotik devices), remote-access VPN, and more. I'm working on creating separate VLANs to better segregate traffic that gets to external-facing web & mail servers from devices that could be better protected in the event that those servers maybe get compromised.

This device is what I needed. As the mikrotik line is always solid and works easy, having a device with 1Gb native ports made the network run at the true transfer rates needed. I also like the SFP port as this works with the server I am running allowing a true 1Gb file transfer to and from the server. The WiFi is locked in at 54Mb (N), connectivity allowing full transfers to the wireless with ease. Adding a Guest network, is easy and can be rate limited to 1Mb preventing data thieves from hogging the connection while visiting. (stupid teenagers with their facebook tweets).Overall, this device is fantastic for the amateur at home, or the professional network engineer needing a quick business router.

Do not buy these if you only have experience with consumer grade equipment like Linksys or netgear. You will be lost. If you're coming from pfsense, adtran, cisco (rack mount), Junos then you'll enjoy these for their priceWe use these in the field by the hundreds. I really love the configuration options. This unit is perfect for home or small business use. I'd prefer rack mount but can't justify that many ports plus you lose the built in AP then. The only reason I give 4 stars is because the LCD was pressure damaged from install. It has a white glow coming fr the edges making it impossible to read. Granted, I could have probably easily swapped it hassle free, but being stock was limited I opted to replace the screen myself. (I do not recommended as you could easily damage the clips and ruin the shell holding the LCD if you brute force it). In reality you probably won't use the screen much if at all other than getting its initial IP.

I have had one of these in service in my home network for a couple of years now. It is extremely capable, exposing very advanced networking capabilities. However, if you need to depart from the built-in configuration of a simple wireless network and switch, you will need a CCNA level of network experience. The documentation for how this works is fragmented and some topics are not well covered. Its been a few years, but I found their forum to be useless as my questions did not get answered. I finally did learn enough about it--youtube videos, wiki, internet searching--main thing for me was to have the wireless network blocked from my wired network. Wireless can only communicate with internet, so if someone gets in to that, they can't access local network. I did this in firewall and had to learn the *nix firewall configuration. So, very pleased with it overall, but cofiguration can be frustrating and time consuming.

I have this CRS running in my living room and a hEX in my basement. OSPF configured between the two and has worked flawless. Bonded trunk ports on both routers connected to Cisco managed switches work seamlessly. I'm using a Cisco sfp copper module on my CRS as the uplink to my hEX. I have multiple vlans configured on both units and an isolated guest vlan. You will need to have UPNP enabled or ports forwarded if you have Directv services or game consoles in your network. if I have a complaint its DHCP services, My FireTV's for whatever reason will not renew their leases. Obviously you can hard code a static address but I went a different route and configured a raspberryPI with Dnsmasq for DHCP and has worked flawlessly. Use relay option on your layer3 or add a helper address on a managed switch either way will work. As you can see you can make these Mikrotik units act like the big boy Cisco enterprise routers and switches. Or you can configure a simple home network and will work as well as a Linksys, Netgear, Dlink home router.