If I am planning to use an ethernet backhaul, is the RBK40 then equivalent to the RBK50?

[jay2utee]

Title pretty much says it all. I know that there's a higher bandwith backhaul antenna in the RBK50, but if I'm using a wired backhaul instead is there any benefit to having the 50?

[FURRYe38]

The wired back haul would be limited to 1000mb. White the back haul of the 50 series is max'd at 1700Mb. The 20/40 series is limited to 866Mb back haul. 

[jay2utee]

That's very helpful, thanks. In real-world situtations, how hard is it to achieve the maximum 1700Mb backhaul? The reason I was planning to go wired is that I live in an old, heavily constructed house.

[FURRYe38]

Depends on distance, environment and buiding materials. 5Ghz is effected by materials. If older home with thick walls or lead based painted walls, this would have some effect on wifi signals. You can try wireless backhaul and see if the Orbi works with wireless connected satellites, if they don't seem to work well, go wired with the RBS. 

[SW_]

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@jay2utee wrote:

... In real-world situtations, how hard is it to achieve the maximum 1700Mb backhaul? ...

Under the best circumstance, both are in line of sight, you'll unlikely to achieve the theoretical max link rate.  At best, you'll get half of that if you are lucky.  I had tested this with my RBK53 earlier to see if Orbi backhaul could replace my existing wireless media bridge, which has a similar link rate of 1734Mbps.  It was disappointing to say the least.

For example, using the same wired connected client:

• Copy a large 10Gig file via Orbi backhaul gives me about ~40MB/s
• Copy a large 10Gig file via my existing wireless media bridge gives me ~70MB/s
• Copy a large 10Gig file via Ethernet gives me ~90MB/s

Given the front haul is at 866Mbps, if your guess is half, then you would be right in the ball park.  Always go with Eithernet whenever possible. Wireless is just an alternative if wiring isn't an option.

[SW_]

Adding the test methods for the above results.

1. Ran large file copy test with existing wireless media bridge network.
2. Turn wireless media bridge off.
3. Swap out wireless media bridge with Orbi.
4. Turn on Orbi and start the same test