Looking for a Multiport Multigig wired open router

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

To clarify:

  • Multiport: At least 3 ports of the indicated speed, at least 5 ports total
  • Multigig: Port supports all the standard speeds from 1Gbps to 2.5Gbps (preferably 10Gbps) with autonegotiation to whatever is at the other end of the cable
  • Wired: RJ45 or other cabling shorter than 60m (200ft)
  • Router: A box designed to act as a router running at the provided wire speed, not a PC or switch.
  • This is for a small business environment, replacing a slower OpenWRT router
  • This is in the EU, not the US, so US rules and markets don’t apply.

One option that may be relevant is a Banana Pi-R4 Pro in the official metal case with some kind of compatible Multigig SFC adapters, no WiFi card and using the routing offload supported by recent OpenWRT for that board . However I am unsure if that is now a stable device (early samples were reported to die within a few days of first use).

Gl net Flint 2 has too few Multigig ports

OpenWRT One has too few ports, and only one of those is Multigig

The various Multigig switches in the ToH are not listed as doing fast enough routing operations such as basic NAT at least with stable OpenWRT releases.

The classic WRT54 is too slow :slight_smile:

2

All, or some ?

3

My definition was to support ALL the speeds in the range, such that autonegotiation will not fail or downgrade to 1Gbps. For example, a port that refuses to negotiate anything but 1Gbps and 10Gbps will be a major problem if the network device at the other end of the cable is 2.5Gbps or 5Gbps.

4

Sorry was typing while on the move, all ports not all speeds.

5

Multigig speed applies to at least 3 of the ports in my current needs, See first bullet. Remaining router ports can be slower such as 1Gbps (with autonegotiation of lower speeds)

6

HP T740 and a low profile quad port multi gig NIC, but I guess it's not what you want, since you wrote PCs were a no go.

7

There are a few Topton/CWWK/... systems that are marketed as routers with 4 or more 2,5G ports. They are Intel N100 or similar, so essentially PCs with this number of independent NICs (so no switch fabric).

Depending on your WAN needs, you might be better off with a router box and a small managed switch. My current setup involves a Zyxel T-56 (2.5G WAN and 2.5G LAN) and a XikeStor SKS8300-12E2T2X with 12x 2.5G + 4x 10G for my fast switching needs.

8

it's pretty much unobtainable, unless you happen to live in NL, but there's always the EX5601.

9

Interesting, but restricted to 2.5Gbps on all ports, plus what will become unused WiFi radios. In contrast the Banana Pi-R4 has two 10Gbps ports with unknown ability to negotiate lower speeds and four 2.5Gbps ports (via switch), plus the ability to add internal cards for other WAN technologies.

10

There will be switches etc. on the other side of the router. This routers job is to combine ISPs and then split traffic between different internal nets. Each port will thus be a different network in the firewall rules and there will be logic deciding what can be routed and NATed from where to where.