Got the new RBK852/Orbi Wifi 6 system today from BB. Getting it up and running was easy. Started testing speeds and realized that the speed between the satellite and the router is very low. The satellite is about 35 feet away with straight line of sight and nothing in between. First connected a Macbook to the ethernet port of the Router and ran iperf3 to a linux box connected to the same layer 2 network. Speed was ~ 900Mbps as expected. Next connected the same PC to the ethernet port on the satellite and ran iperf to the same server. Speed is average of 195Mbps:
I see this as well, internally on the network between Router and Satellite. When connected to the Satellite via WiFi, I can pull a solid 350Mbit/sec externally, so the Backhaul seems fine.
But when transferring within my network, I get very slow speeds for some reason between devices connected to my Router and Satellite. Uploading to a Synology box (1000mbit wired to Satellite) from a MacBook Pro (1300 tx to Router), I'm seeing like absurd 50Mbit speeds.
Hopefully it's just a firmware problem they can fix...
I wish it were something of note related to Orbi AX settings, but it was stupid: It was a bad ethernet cable to the machine connected to the Satellite. It was registering properly as gigabit full-duplex, and upstream to the machine was fine, but downstream must have been error correcting. Because it was working otherwise, I unfortunately blamed the Orbi until I could do more testing.
Replaced the cable and things sped right back up again. With my laptop wired to the Orbi, I can now get close to Gigabit transfer speeds. Wireless AC (MBP isn't AX yet), I get around 500-600Mbit now across the Orbi backhaul (Router to Satellite) to the server, which isn't bad all things considered...
My Orbis are also 2 floors apart through floors with radiant heating, so it's pretty impressive.
This is with the 3.1.6 firmware (which was posted live briefly but is now apparently beta?).
I see this as well, internally on the network between Router and Satellite. When connected to the Satellite via WiFi, I can pull a solid 350Mbit/sec externally, so the Backhaul seems fine.
But when transferring within my network, I get very slow speeds for some reason between devices connected to my Router and Satellite. Uploading to a Synology box (1000mbit wired to Satellite) from a MacBook Pro (1300 tx to Router), I'm seeing like absurd 50Mbit speeds.
Hopefully it's just a firmware problem they can fix...
The entire purpose of a mesh network is to provide one network, thus one SSID, for your devices. That way, all you have to do is connect and the system will automatically select the best/fastest connection for your devices.
Don't worry that your problem was unrelated to the Orbi system. It's always good to share info so that others may learn from your experience. So, thanks for letting us know what happened.
I wish it were something of note related to Orbi AX settings, but it was stupid: It was a bad ethernet cable to the machine connected to the Satellite. It was registering properly as gigabit full-duplex, and upstream to the machine was fine, but downstream must have been error correcting. Because it was working otherwise, I unfortunately blamed the Orbi until I could do more testing.
Replaced the cable and things sped right back up again. With my laptop wired to the Orbi, I can now get close to Gigabit transfer speeds. Wireless AC (MBP isn't AX yet), I get around 500-600Mbit now across the Orbi backhaul (Router to Satellite) to the server, which isn't bad all things considered...
My Orbis are also 2 floors apart through floors with radiant heating, so it's pretty impressive.
This is with the 3.1.6 firmware (which was posted live briefly but is now apparently beta?).
@BanditoIn an ideal world yes - a single SSID should work but you really believe that device manufacturers are that good ? Top of line Andorid devices still prefer the stronger signal vs a "faster"/best one. IOT devices and their "onboarding" is a different nightmare all together.
Irrespective, it should be the user's choice, not forced by NG. If I want to run different SSIDs for different radios, then so be it. Why would the vendor make that choice for me ? Least they can do on their top-of-line product...
With the advent of Smart Connect, the intent of this feature, which Orbi MESH is based on, is to have 1 single SSID name. Since this feature came into play, router mfrs have taking to this and with most average home users wanting something simple to use and router mfrs taking this into development, NG seems to use this as there base model for Orbi. Even with Orbi AC. The other factor is that wireless devices play a roll in how they get connected and they determine which frequency to connect too. So if your wanting to connect your device to 5Ghz, it may not want to as the conditions on 5Ghz may not be acceptable thus it will connect to something else. Noise, signal, envrionment and quality of everything will play a role in how devices choose to connect. Even if you had separate SSIDs and forced it to 5Ghz, the conditions there may not be suitable and you may run into problems until you figured out what the real problem was.
NG also seems to lock down the signal SSID configuration and they don't seem willing to support additional problems that may be seen with letting Orbi have separate SSIDs. They may wan't to limit the problems that users see. Phone support is not cheap for any router businesss so they may just want to not have any more additional expendatures in that regard.
Also there maybe lowlevel chipset considerations as well in regards to how the systems works with a signal SSID or separate SSIDs. Maybe they found that the system wasn't as stable with separate SSIDs or maybe just wasn't feasable to use separate SSIDs. There maybe handshaking and detection of wifi singals between the RBR and RBS that restrict having separate SSIDs as well. There are already known issues with Orbi AC and users who have separated SSIDs causing problems on there RBS.
Over all the Orbi MESH systems do work as NG intended them. There meant for the average home user and meant for simplified use and setup. Users who are used to having separate SSIDs available to them are used to that feature. I to was in the same boat when Smart Connect first came out. I too liked having the flexibility to choose where devices connected. Over time though, I came to like having just 1 SSID and over the years, haven't had much of a problem less some of the bugs found in FW. Smart connect has been good and easy to use. Especially if you keep using the same SSID name and PW as you migrate from one router to another. I haven't had to reset up any of my connected devices. They just connect everytime I migrate to a different router.
Orbi is was it is and NG seems to keep it that way. Users can tinker around and use it like they want to. However configrations outside of whats officially not supported, your on your own there.
@FURRYe38Thank you. The key point is, it works as NG inteded it to. I wish they had chosen otherwise, but I understand. There are other vendors that can meet my need so no harm.
Yes, and glad that there is. Reason for having some competive market. D-Link is another mfr who locks down there MESH systems so don't think NG is the only one. I think ASUS maybe more flexible. Not sure. I only have the GT-AX11000 and use it for wireless bridge mode currently. There UI is more tuned for the more advanced geek though.
So what is the backhaul on the Orbi Wifi 6 system?
I know that despite the touted backhaul on RBK53, I seem to get a maximum of around 33 MB/Sec, and am looking to improve this (ethernet on RBR50 and ethernet on RBS50).
I have an iMac 5k in my office (with Thunderbolt 3 attached Drobo 8D) connected to ethernet, and a Synology Diskstation 1817+ in the downstairs family room (egress). I actually had to physically move the Synology upstairs and hook up to a RBS50 ethernet port to do my restore of the 8D due to the slow backhaul.
So what is the backhaul on the Orbi Wifi 6 system?
I know that despite the touted backhaul on RBK53, I seem to get a maximum of around 33 MB/Sec, and am looking to improve this (ethernet on RBR50 and ethernet on RBS50).
I have an iMac 5k in my office (with Thunderbolt 3 attached Drobo 8D) connected to ethernet, and a Synology Diskstation 1817+ in the downstairs family room (egress). I actually had to physically move the Synology upstairs and hook up to a RBS50 ethernet port to do my restore of the 8D due to the slow backhaul.
Can you tell me what that translates to between an ethernet connected device on the router to an ethernet connected device on the satellite (assuming a good data connection between the router and satellite)?
When a device is connected via ethernet to either RBR or RBS, the max rate seen for ethernet is 1000Mbps. So most wired devices support up to 1000Mbps on there LAN ports. So you going from a 1000Mpbs pipe to a 1200Mpbs wireless pipe between the RBS and RBR, then back down to a 1000Mbps from the RBR out to the modem/internet.
Can you tell me what that translates to between an ethernet connected device on the router to an ethernet connected device on the satellite (assuming a good data connection between the router and satellite)?
When a device is connected via ethernet to either RBR or RBS, the max rate seen for ethernet is 1000Mbps. So most wired devices support up to 1000Mbps on there LAN ports. So you going from a 1000Mpbs pipe to a 2400Mpbs wireless pipe between the RBS and RBR, then back down to a 1000Mbps from the RBR out to the modem/internet.
My Xfinity internet service is officially only 300 mbps (though it does clock in at about 350 mbps).
I hook the iMac to a gigabit ethernet port on the RBS50, and the Synology to a gigabit port on the RBR50. Backing up or restoring gets me about 30-33 MB/sec over wireless backhaul with a good 5 ghz backhaul connection.
Moving the Synology upstairs and plugging it in to one of the RBS50 ethernet ports gets me over 100 MB/sec as expected. My firmware level is 2.5.0.38.
I've tried AFP, SMB, and rsync and all yield about the same numbers.
Note that I'm not talking about port capacity or capability - I'm talking real-world device to device throughput through my intranet which is the real-world test of backhaul single data stream capacity.
Of course, taking all your devices as an aggregate you may (and probably do) exceed that single device-to-device speed number, but I'm looking to improve my device on ethernet connected to a satellite to a device on ethernet connected to the router speed, because when I'm doing a start-from-scratch backup or restore I'm talking about 30 TB+ of data transfer, and while I expect the process to take a while, I'd like to see the task complete while I'm still around to enjoy the results 🙂.
