Review on 🔀 Mikrotik CRS125-24G-1S-2HnD-IN: Fully Manageable Cloud Router Gigabit Switch with Layer 3 Functionality, 24 Port Gigabit Ethernet, and 1000mW Wireless by Troy Coskillas

For the price this switch is great. It runs my DHCP, DNS, NAT/Internet, IPSEC/VPN server and also provides gigabit data transfer speeds for my NAS and VMware cluster. Tier 2 performance is excellent, I can easily pull 950Mbps from my NAS. This is a very versatile switch; a craftsman's dream. It's also very stable, I haven't had to restart it except to install a new firmware. Now for the cons. My main complaint is the underpowered processor. My first test was to copy a file from my Mac to my NAS via Layer3/NAT and the CPU was at 90% utilization. It's too easy to overload the CPU with too much Layer 3, NAT, or firewall traffic. The trunking feature is almost useless as it maximizes CPU usage. WIFI has excellent signal strength, but without MIMO, you're lucky if you can get 150Mbps. This switch is feature rich but not intuitive for beginners. The web interface is basic, but unless you have a solid understanding of Layer2/Layer3, VLAN, iptables, NAT, and routing, you will be overwhelmed with all the options. Main job for a while, but I'm not giving up my RT-N66U just yet.