I'm currently running the latest RPI4 OpenWRT version with good performance, even though I'm using a managed switch to direct traffic to the wan/lan (single port) vlan interface on the rpi4.
I'm now considering upgrading the system to use a USB ethernet adapter. All the YT vids and other 'how-to' sites seem to be using the USB adapter for their WAN interface. Is one better than the other?
If I only have 300mb internet service, will I see any performance improvements going to two ports instead of using vlan?
Thought about upgrading the switch to 2.5gb, but still undecided if I'll gain any improvements between lan devices since they are only 1gb connections at the source.
Using 2.5 Gigabit in your lan can speed up some file transfers (e.g. my NAS maxes out my 1GiB lan because it has a 1GiB NIC) but that is about all you are going to gain.
As for the Pi, it is choked in or out at 1GiB unless you buy two 2.5 dongles. I do not see much advantage for 98% of users.
Thanks. As much as I was looking at usb adapters it dawned on me that I'll not utilize the other 1.5gb since all my interfaces are only 1gb.
Still might toss around the idea of splitting the rpi4 wlan into 2 separate interfaces, not sure if that will accomplish much since my setup is pretty small and prob don't need to spend the time and energy.
I must have skipped/skimmed over this (sorry about that) but IMNSHO the wan should be the internal nic.
It has a dedicated chip then access straight to the SoC without USB overhead.
If nothing more it is cleaner.
I have yet to hear a convincing, informed, opinion how USB in (WAN) could be better.