Hi,
TL:DR: This post is asking for advice on which Mikrotik product to purchase to address my home/QoS needs.
I am grateful for any and all advice. If this has been answered elsewhere, I've not found it in 2 days of looking. But I am happy to be referred as needed.
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I have a small but busy home network for which I use an Asus RT-AX86U route running Merlin firmware with Cake enabled.
I've recently run into download contention issues which makes me consider using a Mikrotik router as I see they can support Hierarchical QoS.
I know that the router cannot be directly responsible for traffic prioritization from the ISP to me, but by prioritizing outbound packet requests/confirms it should control returned (download) traffic rates.
(My issue was that my kids were both downloading game updates whilst we were streaming Disney. Disney stopped, as game updates took all
available bandwidth and Cake on my Asus router didn't handle that. I don't want to restrict game update bandwidths, and anyway XBOX doesn't provide that capability).

My priority traffic handling order is:
A: Gaming traffic. Always requires immediate handling, lowest latency.
B: Anything to/from my work PC.
C: 'Static' browsing (not counting Tiktok / Youtube style streaming in this).
D: Streaming - to/from particular highest priority devices.
E: All other streaming traffic, equally handled.
F: File transfers, including from gaming devices.
G: torrents

I don't want any class of traffic to have a bandwidth maximum cap. i.e. if nothing else is on the network then torrents should get the full bandwidth.
I would set a minimum bandwidth for everything, just to some TCP sessions dropping in file transfers, for example.
I expect classifying traffic could be hard: how to tell between different traffic types from the same device if they share the same protocols and ports.
I wondered if I can run Cake to classify and prioritize on some child queues, and a different schema on parent queues?
What is the maximum depth of child queues in the QoS tree'?
I have read enough to consider MIkrotik as the best path to try this now. I am not worried about the configuration complexity, I have configured routers and HQOS as part
of my job.

Outside of the QoS I will use the router to enable inbound VPN connections, DHCP, NAT, DNS (forwarding), Firewall, IPv4 only, ISP fall-over and revert-back (USB-connected 4G).
I don't need wifi, I can continue to use the Asus as an AP.
My budget is up to 300 Euro
I access my ISP through their gear running in modem mode.

I attach a diagram in the hope that it helps. P1 is my top priority. P2 less etc.

MIKROTIK is not the answer either, that is if you are intent on content based control.
MT does not have APPLICATION CONTROLS or deep packet inspection so it may not work for you.

MT is a user based and by that I mean IP: based firewall router. So put users into vlans and subnets and then you can control traffic to some degree like queues, and where traffic is allowed to go and how to get there..etc. You can also create firewall address lists of users and control those.....
Gaming, access to facebook etc, is not part of that equation

Hopefully others will chime in and give you a better sense of what is in the realm of possible.

@Denigor777
How much bandwidth does your primary ISP provide you with Download and Upload ?

@mozerd It's as shown in the diagram. 70Mb upload (home to ISP), 1Gb download (ISP to home).

I suggest that you consider the RB5009 or the CCR1009 … I have quite a few CCR1009 in homes where gaming is the number one priority …
the tricky part will be for you to arrive a the correct QoS configuration but with some trial and error I’m sure you will arrive at a balance that will please your family.

Hi Mozerd, how do you distinguish on a single computer, a different queue for gaming, and for NAS server access (file access), torrenting, streaming etc...............

Can you provide that fidelity or is it all, ONE IP, one queue applies ??

Why would you recommend the CCR1009? Aren't they discontinued? I'd recommend an RB5009 all the way.

Concur, also because ARM products are more fully supported going forward.

@anav
Your UK friend has the correct answer
viewtopic.php?t=148825#p733499

@gabacho4
Yes the CCR1009 is discontinued and replaced by the CCR2004-16G-2S+PC (I think ?)
But I only have experience with the CCR1009 with gaming clients …

I have a PC version CCR2004 but it was spontaneously rebooting randomly and pissed me off. I exported the config, ported it to my RB5009 and haven't had one issue at all. So I would not loudly recommend the CCR for the time being.

That being said, I WILL wipe the config, do a simple config, and see how things perform. Assuming I don't see any issues I'll then add various other elements such as wireguard site to site and remote access along with VLANS etc and see where things start to go bad.

@anav
Your UK friend has the correct answer
viewtopic.php?t=148825#p733499

I don't believe it's that simple. If you prioritize the consoles by IP, they will hog the bandwidth when downloading games and updates, just like with the Asus. If you put the streaming clients above them in the tree, same issue. Circumventing these issues will require port, protocol, IP and size based mangle rules with some limitations. Furthermore, streaming is encrypted on TCP 443 and cannot be differentiated from other TCP web traffic without DPI capabilities. Having a torrent box to "borrow" content is another potential bandwidth hog, even if it's not seeding 24/7. Workarounds are possible and quite trivial for the gurus here, and the RB5009 is capable of Gigabit internet with various QoS strategies, but coming from Asuswrt implies a big learning curve unless some form of fair queuing or cake is used.

With such a download 1GB/s you will not need any QOS. Buy proper HW to have no delay and for better sleping use QOS CAKE it will take care of the traffic.

Thanks for the advice. The 5009 seems best then.

I appreciate now that we cannot classify traffic types except on basic header info (src/dst/protocol/port). No Application Assuranve. I'll have to make-do.

I wonder if I can make all queues as Cake queues. But still have them in a hierarchy. Perhaps that would allow gaming/small sessions to be prioritised right up the tree, whilst I could still have highest-priority streaming devices further up in the queue hierarchy to take precedence over the torrent server.

@Rox169: Even with 1Gb download there is contention, Cake alone does not stop huge bandwidth downloads giving problems to Disney+ streaming services. It's the rule of bandwidth these days....however much we have...we will always fill it.

With a simple queue assigned to WAN for example, your bandwidth will be split evenly between clients (as needed). This should allow your downloads to proceed at the fastest rate possible while still allowing someone to stream from Disney Plus. Or you can set simple queues with a specific client IP and limit them to what you want then to have for download and upload speeds. The Roku or FireTV etc that is streaming in 4k doesn't need more than like 20/25 Mbps. And that's pretty liberal IMHO since a lot of those devices buffer so you get a bigger download burst at the begining to create the buffer and then smaller ones needed to keep the buffer full.

I managed to have 3 kids doing online school on Zoom and a 4th kid watching Disney Plus all day using a 100/25 LTE connection and we had next to no issues due to queuing.