AN-520-RT Not Enough Ports
A
Andrew Mieczkowski
I realize that the AN-520-RT is new, but it does not have enough LAN ports and it needs a big brother. When using dual-WAN, the 520-RT has only 1 LAN port.
This new, updated router needs to have the following features:
1) Dedicated 2.5G WAN1 port
2) Dedicated 2.5G WAN2 port
3) At minimum, 3 dedicated LAN ports (at least 1 being 2.5G)
4) Optional 2.5G SFP ports for WAN or LAN use
Why do I think this is needed?
More reliable power control. The main PDU used for network power control needs to be directly connected to the router. Connecting the main PDU directly to the router means that it is NOT at the mercy of flaky downstream devices. Over these many years, we have seen switches go into limbo, offline states which breaks access to the PDUs control. Pakedge always highly recommended this topology. The Pakedge RK1 has 5 LAN ports. In large installations, we would connect as many as 4 PDUs directly to the RK1. This has been virtual lifesaver at times. Of course, the RK1 is an older device and is not something we should be using going forward.
Thank you
J
John Mark Kucera
We are struggling with the lack of ports as well, but mainly a third WAN port. We use this setup a lot, that allows us to dedicate traffic to certain a certain WAN, and the other WANs can use fail over with 2 ISPs.
1 LAN port is prtty lame, but it is very rare that we ever use 2, sometimes for our Mici PCs on the jobsite or if there is a lone WattBox and the switch is in a different location.
X
Xander Greenwalt
PLEASE!
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Yamin Chowdhury
Yes, that used to be our design practice before ports got so limited. It's totally fine if you're using a robust layer-3 switch as your core-switch for DHCP, VLANs and all, and the router is just a firewall on a stick. But that's not a caliber of switch possessed by Araknis. For residential/SMB applications, please add ports to the router. Just 3 isn't much to ask. How much cost did it save between 1 and 3 ports, really?
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Ted Rothstein
Yes, this make a lot of sense