In recent times, router manufacturers are incorporating Multigigabit ports into their routers , the objective of incorporating these ports is to provide speeds of 2.5GbE or 5GbE with a single port . However, in the firmwares there is also the possibility of making Link Aggregation of two Gigabit Ethernet ports. What is better to have in a router? Today in this article we are going to explain the strengths and weaknesses of each of the options.
Multigigabit ports on high-end home routers
Currently high-end routers usually incorporate a Multigigabit port, in Multigigabit networks we have seen that we can have speeds of 2.5GbE or 5GbE, but currently routers have the “slower” option, that is, we have ports at a speed 2.5Gbps. However, we have seen cases such as the ASUS RT-AX86U, which incorporates a specific Multigigabit chipset that does support speeds of 5Gbps in the port, however, the CPU does not support it, so “only” we will have 2.5Gbps of speed in this port.
At the firmware level, the Multigigabit port is configured by default as LAN , to connect a NAS server with this type of connectivity, and provide great performance throughout the local network, either for computers connected via cable or via Wi-Fi 6, since we have verified in this article that achieving speeds above 900Mbps via Wi-Fi is perfectly feasible.
Incorporating Multigigabit ports in a router has its strengths, and also its weaknesses, so you have to think if it really compensates you for the additional price you will have to pay for it. Logically, if the price of a router with a Multigigabit port is the same as one that does not have this connectivity, always go for one that does, because it is the future of home networks.
Strengths
The strong point of incorporating a multigigabit port in a home router is speed . With a typical Cat5e network cable, we can transfer data at speeds of up to 2.5Gbps, or what is the same, we can achieve transfer speeds around 280-300MB / s approximately.
This is ideal if in this port we connect a desktop computer with a Multigigabit network card , since we can transfer at high speeds to several computers. Currently, NAS servers with 2.5GbE connectivity are already beginning to become popular , such as the QNAP TS-253D that we have analyzed in this article, so you can squeeze even more out of this type of devices in the connected home.
Weak points
The weak points of having a Multigigabit port in a router is that it will be more expensive than another router with similar characteristics without this type of connectivity. We must also bear in mind that, to take advantage of the speed of these ports, we need to have a network card with Multigigabit support , regardless of whether it is a 10G card with NBASE-T support, or a card only 2.5GbE.
If we do not have a network card compatible with these speeds, it will be useless to have this connectivity. If you have a laptop or ultrabook and want to take advantage of these speeds, the QNAP QNA-UC5G1T is ideal for you:
Thanks to this 5G Multigigabit port adapter (it also supports 2.5GbE) to USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, we can have this ultra-fast connectivity.
Gigabit Ethernet ports with Link Aggregation
Some manufacturers have decided to incorporate in their firmwares for the possibility of making Link Aggregation in their routers , some manufacturers that support this functionality are ASUS and NETGEAR, without a doubt, two highly recommended manufacturers of high-end routers. Link Aggregation, or also known as LACP or 802.3ad standard, allows us to join two (or more) physical ports in a single logical link, this will allow us to increase the real bandwidth of the devices, being able to transfer at higher speeds.
Home routers only allow Link Aggregation to be performed on two Gigabit Ethernet ports , switches that can be managed with this function allow us to perform link aggregation with many more ports, but currently routers only allow a maximum of 2 ports. This means that, if we connect a NAS server or a computer with several network cards, we can provide it with connectivity to the local network of up to 2Gbps speed, ideal for sharing data at high speed.
The incorporation of the Link Aggregation functionality, and its use in a router, has its strengths, and also its weaknesses, so you should think about whether it is really worth it. This is a firmware feature, and there is usually no additional cost for adding this feature.
Strengths
The strong point of the incorporation of the Link Aggregation function is the versatility , we can equip a PC or NAS server with twice the speed, up to 2Gbps Full-Duplex specifically. In addition, we can use the same cabling as always with Cat5e to join the router and the final host. In addition, we can enable or disable this function whenever we want from the firmware, in case in some moments we do want to connect a server.
If you are going to connect a desktop computer that has two network cards, or a dual-port network card, or a NAS server with two Gigabit Ethernet ports, this solution will allow you to double the performance of the equipment when you access from different devices to copy records.
Weak points
The first weak point of using LACP in a router is that these types of devices usually have few Gigabit Ethernet ports, we usually have four LAN ports, although there are home routers that have 6 and even 8 Gigabit Ethernet ports. By joining two physical links into a logical one, we are actually “losing” a port, which we cannot use to connect another computer to the network. Therefore, the first weak point is that we will have a less available Gigabit Ethernet port to connect another device.
Link Aggregation is a protocol that requires both ends to “speak” the same language, that is, 802.3ad. If we do not have a PC configured with the LACP standard, or if we have not configured our NAS server as such, link aggregation will not work.
Another negative aspect is that, depending on the load balancing that we have in the router firmware , LACP could not provide us with the speed of 2Gbps. LACP supports different load balancing algorithms so that both physical links are transferring traffic, the most common is src-mac, although we can also find src-dst-mac or src-dst-ip that have greater granularity. In the following image you can see some load balancing algorithms of a professional L3 switch:
Until we verify its operation we will not know what algorithm it is using internally, this could limit the load balancing on the links, and not provide us with the speed of 2Gbps in certain circumstances.
So what function is best for the router to incorporate?
Depending on the needs and equipment you currently have, one option or the other (and even both) will be worth it. However, Link Aggregation is at the firmware level, so you simply have to look at brands and models that incorporate this functionality, the vast majority of ASUS and NETGEAR routers have this functionality, in this article you have many analyzes where we talk about whether a certain model supports this function or not.
Currently both functionalities (Multigigabit port and Link Aggregation) are incorporated in several ASUS models, such as the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 and the RT-AX86U, NETGEAR also has the RAX200 and RAX120 routers that have 2.5Gbps Multigigabit ports, in addition , the RAX120 has a 5Gbps Multigigabit port, twice as fast.
As you have seen, we currently have high-end home routers with both options, to speed up our local network to the maximum.
