I need a routerboard with 7 ethernet ports (no need for gigabit ethernet) and wireless capability, as I want to do PCC load balancing and Hotspot on it.

I have searched routerboard.com , and I can see that the RB951Ui-2HnD suits my needs at the best price , and I have worked with it before, but this time I need 2 additional ethernet ports for it. and I am looking for the cheapest solution available.

I was thinking of getting myself another switch/mikrotik from routerboard and use port based vlan to add the (switch/router)'s ports to the RB951Ui-2HnD as VLAN interfaces , and use them from there.

is that a good solution? my requirement is going as cheap as possible. . . also what switch/router would you recommend for that job? and can any managed with VLAN capabilty do the job? or do I need mikrotik for that?

sorry if my questions sound silly , I just want to make sure before purchasing the equipment. . .

Check the rb2011.
If switch is enough just take whatever cheap 5 port switch and put it in between.

Check the rb2011.
If switch is enough just take whatever cheap 5 port switch and put it in between.

Sorry I don't get you, between what should I put the switch?? do you mean to add the ports from the cheap 5 port switch to the RB951Ui-2HnD as VLAN interfaces? (as noted in my question) or are you proposing a new solution?

also I was thinking of getting a RB260GS switch to do that job, so the overall cost will be about 100$, what do you think? can using VLAN between the RB951Ui-2HnD and RB260GS be problematic in some way?

You can swap to 2011 or crs125 to have really enough ports. In case of using dumb switch all vlans are passed untouched though. Will the connected devices have to belong to different vlans each? Maybe you should clearly describe what is the planned state of the network and what purpose should be reached. It could happen that there is some solution that you have overseen.

You can swap to 2011 or crs125 to have really enough ports. In case of using dumb switch all vlans are passed untouched though. Will the connected devices have to belong to different vlans each? Maybe you should clearly describe what is the planned state of the network and what purpose should be reached. It could happen that there is some solution that you have overseen.

ok, I have 5 wan links that I would like to have PCC load balancing over them, then I need a port for LAN users (who are using that shared bandwidth) , and another port for LAN but that port requires users to have hotspot credentials in order to get access (this port will be bridged to the wlan interface).

I have done a similar configuration with 2 wan links before using an RB951Ui-2HnD , but this time I want it done with 5 wan links, that's why I need those additional ports. . .

if the cheap switch can work with the RB951Ui-2HnD to give me those 2 ports, why not use this solution? and save the budget required to buy an rb2011? what do you think?

thanks in advance