Hello forum,
Recently bought a Hex, RB750GR3, to play around with in hopes of it replacing a power hungry PC that runs OPNsense.
In my current setup I don't have VLANs configured, but would like to change that up, just because I can - but should I ??? Read on...
My reasons are twofold - for the learning experience as well as ease of scalability for larger setups (or so I've read)
Since the switch(es) that will be used can handle VLANs, I can see one of two options I'd like to try out. But having read some posts here and elsewhere about the Hex's VLAN limitations concerning hardware offloading or (other) speed issues, (true stories, or fake news?) I just don't know what to do. Skip VLANs altogether, or use them? Bridge eth2 through eth5, or keep separate?
This is what I can think of:
==OPTION 1==
PC1---VLAN10---sw.p01,U/T-VLAN10 (read: PC1 will be part of VLAN10, connected to switch port 01, which will be a member of VLAN10)
PC2---VLAN10---sw.p02,U/T-VLAN10
Prt1--VLAN10---sw.p03,U/T-VLAN10
AP1---VLAN10---sw.p04,U/T-VLAN10
spare----------sw.p05,U/T-VLAN10
AP2---VLAN20---sw.p06,U/T-VLAN20
PC3---VLAN30---sw.p07,U/T-VLAN30
spare----------sw.p08,U/T-VLAN30
PC4---VLAN40---sw.p09,U/T-VLAN40
Trunkport-1----sw.p10,T-VLANs 10,20,30.40 (read: tagged for all VLANs)
Connect trunkport-1 to Eth2
or:
==OPTION 2==
PC1---VLAN10---sw.p01,U/T-VLAN10
PC2---VLAN10---sw.p02,U/T-VLAN10
Prt1--VLAN10---sw.p03,U/T-VLAN10
AP1---VLAN10---sw.p04,U/T-VLAN10
spare----------sw.p05,U/T-VLAN10
Trunkport-1----sw.p06,T-VLANs 10
Connect trunkport-1 to Eth2
AP2---VLAN20---sw.p07,U/T-VLAN20
PC3---VLAN30---sw.p08,U/T-VLAN30
PC4---VLAN40---sw.p09,U/T-VLAN40
Trunkport-2----sw.p10,T-VLANs 20,30.40
Connect trunkport-2 to Eth3
Questions:
A) should I be able to configure either option on the Hex, or is this unsupported? (don't think it is, but asking to be sure)
B) will there be a performance/throughput difference between OPTION 1 and OPTION 2? In a small scale as illustrated, I suppose perhaps not. But what about a small business, with up to, let's say 30 hosts (hosts being a mix of PCs, printers, APs, phones) Is using VLANs a wise choice for this router, or are traditional subnets per port a better choice?
Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I hope to learn, implement and enjoy the Mikrotik.