Review on MikroTik Cloud Router Switch CRS109 8G 1S 2HnD IN by Richard Deng

I discovered Mikrotik hardware while looking for a small business firewall. If you are looking for something that does everything Mikrotik RouterOS promises, the price is so cheap that you simply have to try it. After playing around with it for a while, you'll find that the feature set is well worth it. Important note: If you're just looking for a home device that you plug in and it works, this will likely do what you need, but the configuration may be overwhelming for users without serious networking knowledge, and you may end up paying less for more consumer-grade Device with so much functionality. That said, it's a good price for a learning device if you want to learn how to network, and there's plenty of help on their forums to help you deal with what you don't know (because you can't know everything ). ).I bought this model for home use after playing around with a few 24 port versions and I have only one complaint, if you can call it that. I have a problem, WiFi on this device is ONLY 2GHz and 5GHz is not available. Most consumer Wi-Fi hotspots give you both and never explain what the difference is, so you take it for granted and probably didn't set it up properly. 5 GHz tends to have a shorter range but better transmission speeds. 2GHz has the best coverage, but your uploads and downloads won't be as fast. I like broader coverage, but my main home hotspot is another 5GHz-enabled device, and that's my WiFi when I'm in the garage or around my house. Because speed. That being said, gigabit ethernet is good, having 8 ports is good, and RouterOS is amazing functionality for whatever you need to set up. I set up static IP addresses with DHCP and NAT port forwarding with no problems. After some searching and reading, I installed a site-to-site VPN (between two Mikrotik devices), a VPN for remote access, and more. I'm working on creating separate VLANs to better segregate traffic to external web servers and mail servers from devices that can be better protected in case those servers can be compromised.