Isn’t RAM like the biggest bottleneck in routers causing bufferblaot and packet loss?
How does the article not mention how much RAM this device has?
Packet loss occurs when a router has to drop some packets because the buffer to store them is running out because the link where they are supposed to go is overloaded.
Bufferbloat is the issue where you make your queues too deep, i.e. you allocate too much RAM to buffering, while the cause of the buffering still exists, so the deeper queue just fills up anyway, so you haven’t improved anything, and have induced extra latency on the packets that do make it trough.
Deep buffers can help in situations where you have a step down in link speed, but only bursty and not sustained overloading of the slower output link.
The big bottleneck in router hardware is more about TCAM or HBM memory used to store the FIB of the global routing table. Since the table has grown so much the devices with less high speed memory can’t hold the table anymore, and if they start swapping the FIB to normal memory your routing performance goes to shit.
So not all of your concerns seem to apply to this class of device, but of course you’re right, The Register should have mentioned the RAM.
I need this router.
I’m glad it’s open hardware as much as open software, but I think I’ll wait to see what the OpenWrt Two looks like.
I need this but 4G version…
So, how is this any better than the Router Mini PCs you can find in Aliexpress (random example)?
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Most of those run OpenWrt or PfSense. Assuming the hardware is well-supported by the open source software it runs, there’s a argument to be made that there’s no difference. There’s always the risk of them using some weird chipset that won’t be supported in a year’s time. The only difference is that the OpenWrt One is specifically designed for OpenWrt with well-supported hardware.
how good is openwrt these days? i used it a long time ago on tp link hardware are remember it was not too good…like adding own scripts, addons etc. and then i tried stuff like ipfire,ipcop and pfsense. pfsense was so much better and now opensense is quite good. how does current openwrt compare?
I’ve been using it on my last 2 routers, currently the Netgear WAX206 and I’m loving it.
It does what it’s supposed to. No complaints.
It’s Open source hardware too
Whilst that’s a nice slogan, in Electronics “open source” doesn’t mean anywhere as much as it does in Software because it’s generally just knowing which components go into the circuit, which is but a fraction of the work (laying out the board is a massive chunk of work, in some cases most of it, and at high enough clock speeds circuit design is an art in itself).
Mind you, I like the Orange Pi and Banana Pi guys, and the idea of an SBC designed for being an open source router is pretty appealing, though nowadays maybe pfSense would be a better choice than OpenWrt.
Finally this thing having only 2 ethernet ports + WiFi makes it little more than a regular $70+ SBC board + a box - something easy enough to put together by any technically inclined person - which isn’t exactly exciting.
Open hardware (by oshwa definition) would include the board layout
pfSense would be a better choice than OpenWrt
I heard pfSense had a hard time with wireless radios, and that’s where OpenWrt shines comparably. Is that not true?
Well it’s cheaper, so I’m not sure it’s going for “better”.
Of course, I just bought a new router, your all welcome
Thank you for your sacrifice.
Which router did you go for, by the way?
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Just pulled the trigger, only had European plugs in stock. I’ve got adapters so np. I’m getting it to replace my Raspberry Pi router that I’ve been using for a few years.
*Edit, I should say I’m a huge fan openWRT despite the fact that 15 years ago I managed to brick my linksys router so bad it actually caused sparks to shoot out the ethernet jacks. I flashed the wrong model firmware.
That’s amazing, for software to be able to cause that!
Power over Ethernet is a helluva drug
I still don’t understand why this isn’t a 2.5G WAN and 2.5G LAN. Is it assuming that people are going to be using it as a router on a stick with a 1G WAN?
I can’t tell if WAN is Wireless Area Network or Wide Area Network.
most likely because this device is mainly for wifi use, and/or limitation of the SoC.
Is it available only though aliexpress?
What’s the point of having 1G on WAN and 2.5G on LAN? Traffic won’t hit the LAN port until it’s routed to the Internet, yet the WAN port is the bottleneck.
The LAN and WAN ports aren’t labelled as such on the device and can be configured to do anything. The 2.5Gb port can also be used to take in PoE so for a lot of people - myself included - this will be the only port that’s actually used, or at least the port that will be used the heaviest. The reason, I think, that it’s configured as WAN by default is so that the LAN port can be used to plug a laptop in directly without disconnecting the whole network.
This person knows openwrt haha.
Tranfering between devices on the LAN.
Edit: Wait, no, it’s the other way around. 2.5 on WAN, and just a single 1GB LAN port. That absolutely doesn’t make sense.
This is a common setup for WiFi routers, where the idea is that most traffic will be on WiFi.
It’s default 2.5G WAN and 1G LAN. It also has wifi to use some of that bandwidth.
Local NAS, local security cameras, in-house streaming, LAN multiplayer, local torrent-like data sharing (FYI, Windows Update and more uses the local network to share update between computers by default, so it gets downloaded once and then shared internally)
Does it have enough power to handle routing (not just switching) 2.5Gb + 2.5Gb + whatever the WiFi can support? My guess is it cannot and it would have pushed the price up signifcantly to do so.
Does seem counter intuitive to me as this is squarely aimed at enthusiasts who would like to min max their home network.
Maybe it can be used as a router on a stick.
Could it help with internal tasks, like self-hosted services or a business that transfers files around a lot?
Turris Omnia & OpenWRT-ONE I wish we had this in Asia
Are you suggesting that AliExpress doesn’t ship to Asia?
I’m not sure why I would get this openwrt one i stead of one from Turris
This is cool
The next router I’m getting!
If only it were a useful hardware configuration.
