MikroTik Routerboard RB2011UiAS-2HnD-IN With Sfp Port

Un buen equipo burn rendimiento

I am so amazed with this product. It’s powerful, flexible, inside a robust metal case, sports external antennas, USB data access, ability to use web-based configuration, command line configuration, or Windows configuration program, and this even a touchscreen LCD panel built right in!

The catch?

You will have to learn how to use it. I am a standard user with a desire to tinker, so have been running DD-WRT (custom firmware) for my old WRT-54GL. I found that setup easy to use, even though there are many advanced features available, for the most part I could ignore them. Now, this Mikrotik product made me wonder if purchasing it was a mistake once I booted it up and logged into the interface the first time. There is a “quick set” feature that will preload many standard settings that will turn the Mikrotik router into your basic home router, where you plug in your modem on Ethernet port #1, and the rest of the 9 ports act as your local bridged network. With quick set, you can be up and running in no time, but the setup will be basic… and if you’re looking at this router, I know you want to do some fun stuff with it.

Want to do DDNS? You’ll need a script+schedule to get that working. Want to do some port forwarding? You’ll need to 1) allow access through the firewall for whatever port you want to use, and 2) create a NAT rule that handles this incoming connection on that port. Automatic backup to file on local storage + email you a copy? Make a schedule for it. And so on and so forth.

This thing seems to be very versatile. So far, everything I want to do can be done, but you can’t always assume it will be a simple task… or even straightforward. I know I’m barely tapping the potential of this thing, but as a hobbyist/tinkerer, it’s been a good investment. Also, the RouterOS license that you need for this is built in. There are no licensing feeds – just buy the hardware and it works – unlike enterprise-class Cisco products, etc…

I read that power users (e.g. those used to the aforementioned Cisco products) will have no problem adjusting to RouterOS. It’s different, but if you are already messing with the high-class gear, you probably have a good idea of what you’re doing. For basic users like me, it was more of a fun project, but can clearly see the potential of this device.

Also, if you need help, the Mikrotik community is great. I’ve received so many scripting tips and troubleshooting techniques just by browsing the forums.

Just take it slow and get to know the router. Treat it with respect and invest some time into it – it’s different than what you’re used to, but that’s okay. You might even form a long lasting bond with this amazing piece of tech, ha! 🙂

This router does so many things so well (e.g. VPN server/client, multiple DHCP servers, WiFi hotspot with real login capability, RADIUS authentication, etc.) with RouterOS that I just couldn’t pass it up. This is the kind of router you would see at a small business or tiny commercial location, and it has the kind of reliability that you just don’t see in more consumer-focused routers!

I’ve been using this router for more than three years now and it hasn’t failed me yet. WiFi is long-range, but cannot handle more than 30Mbps speed even at the highest level of signal strength. This is due to the particularities of 2.4Ghz WiFi, though this router will have no problem serving multiple clients at once.
If you want more powerful wireless capabilities I suggest the Routerboard 922UAGS-5HPacD which I have also reviewed here on Amazon. The other mentioned Mikrotik router comes with a high-powered long-range two-stream 866Mbps 5Ghz wireless interface and I completely recommend both for SOHO-based networking requirements.

The router usually ships with Router OS version 6.5 or later, but it was easy enough through Winbox (a GUI Mikrotik router management tool) to update to version 6.39.1 – the very latest as of this review. Same for the boot firmware, which often brings network speed improvements. For more information, check the change-logs available on the Mikrotik website.
You’ll find these routers to be supported for years to come by new and better features!

The upgrade brought even more new features than before, such as more stable low-range wireless communication and faster bridged network transfers. For devices that have low-power radios or low signal, like my cell phones, the improvements have considerably improved coverage and speed even at negative-80-and-less wireless signal (which is visible from the management tool as well). For internal network devices like video servers or file-sharing, you’ll find the new ‘fast-path’ and ‘fasttrack’ network transfer options to easily push 1Gbps without any drops or CPU usage by the router itself.

The router comes with two switch-chips, connected to each set of five ports, which can drastically stabilize communication speed without any router overhead! This is a great thing for Internet communication because the router can max out 100Mbps+ with zero median speed difference. I have 100Mbps cable Internet and this router can push 100Mbps continuously to any Ethernet client without any problems or strange latency-related issues.

The only issue I have with this is a lack of Mikrotik non-Wiki documentation, help system, or roll-over explanation but for someone like me who loves tinkering with all kinds of network equipment for home or business it wasn’t really a problem. Less technical people may find the router configuration daunting, though you can purchase books on how to configure the router or hire someone if you really need help since Mikrotik has its own certified people to support their products.

The only settings I had problems with were getting the WiFi to work (you have to set it to AP Bridge mode, not Station) and getting my cable ISP’s modem to see the MAC address they needed to see so I could get a public IP (can only do that through the terminal console and not Winbox).

The router provides 27-30dBm of WiFi power, or for those not versed in WiFi that’s about 1 watt of power, which is more than many consumer-focused routers (often limited up-to 21dBm power). Clients may not be able to communicate at that high 30dBm power-level, but it can definitely help with range if you have clients that do support it like laptops and external WiFi cards (e.g. wireless-to-Ethernet bridges).
One router is able to cover my whole house through several floors and walls, and if you have several of the same model configured on the same network and with different channels the routers can load-balance WiFi clients between themselves with no configuration changes or downtime.

The router has 10 Ethernet ports: Ether1 (the first port) is taken for WAN connectivity in the default configuration for this router, 5 Gigabit Ethernet and 5 Fast Ethernet (1000Mbps and 100Mbps respectively) ports are available, though I would have preferred a bit of consistency here. There is an updated hardware revision called the Routerboard 3011UiAS that has ten Gigabit ports and more modern hardware, so don’t forget to check the Mikrotik product pages for any new hardware releases!

The Routerboard 2011UiAS-2HnD-IN internally has a 600Mhz processor which is absolutely great – with 20-50Mbps Internet traffic the CPU load barely reaches above 5% and even then that’s only for a second. With 100Mbps Internet traffic, the CPU only reaches about 25% load which means the router can support even more bandwidth! Official figures quote the router at 200Mbps max, but with ‘fast-path’ and ‘fasttrack’ enabled supposedly the maximum is at least doubled (500Mbps).

However, with my 100Mbps max Internet, this router is quite capable at handling that as well as any background traffic like port scanning or network attacks. You can configure port monitoring and automatically define blocked/allowed IP lists with firewall rules, and thereby protect the router against Internet scanning with almost no CPU or bandwidth impact!

To explain further, with normal firewall rules (at the stage where data has already traversed the router destined for another device or network port), there is some slowdown with more than 25 rules. However, if you instead use the raw filter options (that operate as traffic is first seen by the router Ethernet port), you can minimize or reduce that slowdown to almost nothing,

It also includes 128MB of storage space and 128MB of RAM – plenty for caching any kind of data such as DNS entries or computer files, or for upgrading the router on-the-fly. The router supports multiple partitions running different versions of RouterOS, so that way you can have a complete backup of another firmware version to downgrade/roll-back to if you encounter any problems, though it isn’t done automatically.
To restore an older version, you can simply boot up the other partition and continue working without any downtime!

There is plenty of room for device updates, of which this router can support up to RouterOS v8 (as of now, the software is not yet out of v6, so there are several more years of updates available) with it’s Level 5 license (normally about $100 or so, but included with the device). The software is device agnostic (but not CPU architecture agnostic), so you can update the router to any supported version as mentioned very easily using your preferred management interface.

It even comes with an included fiber-optic Internet port (module for connectivity not included), though I don’t have fiber Internet out here in rural West Virginia; the port supports up to 1Gbps or so I heard online. (I can’t test it due to no fiber Internet service here.)

The router does not reboot needlessly, nor does rebooting take more than 10 seconds.
Other devices may need to reboot to apply configuration changes, but this router can reconfigure itself without the need to reboot (no matter how small the config change is or what part of the router it concerns, like wireless configuration or IP address changing). The only time you must reboot is if you want to upgrade the router, but you can choose to postpone rebooting indefinitely as the process is manually initiated.

The router does not reboot under strain either, the worst that can happen is it starts dropping wireless clients if they have too-low signal or there is too much contention going on, but you can minimize this with multiple Mikrotik wireless routers like I am doing. I have three of these routers now and they operate a mesh wireless network for my entire house – no problems whatsoever to report!

There is a web interface for this router, but I never used it because I prefer the client software Winbox for management (it exposes all the features of this router without any need for continuous page refreshes). The alternative SSH command-line interface (and the web interface) are easy enough to navigate since they match up with the Winbox management layout completely.

This is the router brand that you should make your next purchase, I promise you will not be disappointed!

El procesador del router tira poco y te obliga a apagar el lcd para ganar recursos en caso de 300 megas, que fluctuan como si de una adsl se tratara… no recomendado para enrutar mas de 150 megas..