Discussing 10Gb home fiber setup with Mikrotik or other options
Discussing 10Gb home fiber setup with Mikrotik or other options
Hey there! I’m hoping you’re having a great day overall. I’m planning to establish a fiber backbone that can handle 10Gb speeds right now and potentially scale up to 40Gbe+ in the future. Our existing setup includes two servers: one for VM/plex provisioning (Unraid) and another serving as high-speed NAS and long-term HDD storage (Timemachine). On the network side, we usually manage around 15 devices at peak, with a capacity close to 40. Most devices range from smartphones to laptops and workstations, all connected via standard 1GbE ports—except for workstations, which use multiple 1GbE links bonded together. The goal behind adding fiber is the extensive space we have (100' by 50') across two floors, plus the flexibility to upgrade receivers later if needed. For the network architecture, I’m considering Mikrotik switches because they support 4×10Gb SFP+ on budget models like CRS305 and CRS309. If using APs, the RB 4011 would be a good fit since it supports both fiber and Ethernet, while the APs could leverage 4×4 MU-MIMO on 5GHz and 3×3 on the 2.4 GHz bands. My current idea is to build this from a top-down perspective (see image link). For APs, I’m leaning toward either Unify or Mikrotik. This plan was updated on May 19, 2019 by Camofelix. Feel free to add any tags if others need assistance with the setup!
Mikrotik switches and routers are impressive. The wireless setup for home works well with more than one access point, though not ideal. CAPsMan outperforms Unifi when managing controlled APs. If you manage with just one AP—especially one built into the router like the RB4011—it’s a decent approach. The RB4011 supports 2*2 MU-MIMO on 2.4GHz, not the higher configurations you might expect. Running a few APs (2 or three) as standalone Mikrotik devices is fine. However, with three or more, keeping SSID management centralized becomes crucial. There’s little value in the RB4011 if your ISP doesn’t exceed 1Gbps. If it does, opt for a router with dual SFP+ ports since using the RB4011 would require several Ethernet cables on the router side (either separate or bonded to the core switch). The cheapest option with dual SFP+ is the CCR1036-8G-2S+ at $1095, which isn’t worth it. The RB4011 isn’t a poor pick, just unnecessary in this setup. This is my current network setup for reference: Router—RB1100AHx4 Dude Edition (I found it hard to choose between RB1100AHx4 and RB4011 since they share the CPU). I selected the RB1100AHx4 because I want to experiment with caching on the router and enable a bypass connection on ports 11 and 12. Core Switch—CRS125-24G-1S APs: three high-performance ACs (not hAP AC²). My next upgrades plan includes adding a 10Gb switch, likely another Mikrotik, and swapping APs for Unifi when their Wi-Fi 6 models arrive (which should support 2.5Gb or 5Gb Ethernet ports, possibly needing a switch upgrade).
For a 10GB optical switch with Mikrotik, the CRS317-1G-16S+RM is recommended. If you require a connection between the switch and router at that speed, the CCR1009-7G-1C-1S+ is suitable.