Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Infinity 10-Gigabit SFP+ EdgeRouter (ER-8-XG)

Fantastic bgp router. Annoying about the banking of the ports (4 ports on one, 4 on another - each bank sets all the speed / duplex for the ports). Otherwise it's relatively solid.

I can't understand the typical use case or the topology for this device. I have 2Gbps WAN via SFP+ and few 10Gbps servers on LAN. So this devices appeared to be perfect for my use case. But when I started to configure it - that device is for "routing", and whenever I try to use it for switching between servers, the LAN speed is 500-700Mbps, very slow! They recommend to use external switch for switching. Why I would buy this 8 ports device if not for switching?

Pros:Faster with a couple more features than the ER4 that it replaced. Extremely powerful with lots of redundancy and capability to boot. Was able to directly copy my ER4 config file and transfer to the ER-8-XG without many modifications (ddns being one of them). Accepted my UF-RJ45-1G sfp modules without too much trouble (have to manually set gigabit speed of a different port than what it's plugged into).Cons:Price & availability. I prefer shopping at Newegg or Amazon, but I was essentially forced to buy directly from ubiquiti due to the massive price difference. The next closest retailer was $100 more with Amazon being $400 more. Setting qos on both upload and download for my gigabit/100 wan, using the exact configuration file directly from the ER4 initially yielded slower results than the ER4.Other Thoughts:I have gigabit/100mbit fiber to my house because I run a business backup/sync @ home. The ER4 with NO qos enabled was able to get the full speeds both directions, but if anyone, even a single computer was using the full connection in either direction I would get 180+ ms in buffer bloat with dropped packets. With qos enabled, the ER4 would drop the buffer bloat down to virtually nothing on upload and about 6ms on download, but at a heavy price. On the ER4 with qos enabled, the maximum throughput is exactly 550mbit. So that meant I was leaving 390mbit on the table for downloads. For months I looked for alternatives. I strongly considered running another pfsense box like I did years ago, but I'm away on business sometimes weeks at a time, and wanted zero downtime. In case of a power outage, I've had issues in the past where the pfsense box didn't come back up 100% properly every time. Long story short, I settled on the ER-8-XG. I stated in the "cons" section that the ER-8-XG was initially slower than my ER4. I discovered that if I set the qos Upload speed on my WAN to 100 megabit (my actual upload speed), and separately qos the upload TO my LAN instead of qos'ing the download of WAN, I got nearly my full download speed (about 880-908mbit). When I qos the download on my WAN it barely reaches 440-470mbit which was slower than the ER4. I haven't found anything on the internet where anyone was having the same issues as me, so I guess it will have to do for now. The ER-8-XG with no qos on the download, saturating the gigabit has a buffer bloat of around 140-180ms. With the qos set on the LAN upload side it has a maximum buffer bloat of around 25ms while still achieving 870mbit. I've played around with different settings to try to achieve my full 920-940mbit with qos enabled, but I still can't get above about 870mbit. I realize this is splitting hairs, but 70mbit is still a lot of bandwidth left on the table and I'd like to have everything I'm paying for after an investment this large. Overall, I'm happy with my purchase. You can build one hell-of-a pfsense box for $1650+, so if you have the time or motivation, that might be the better choice for qos related issues. For mission-critical applications ubiquiti is my go-to brand for quick / reliable gear with versatile functionality & the infinity delivers.

Ubiquiti should continue to improve and market their Edge line of products. They are there for the professional. This router is wonderful and really the best router appliance on the market