Recently, my home upgraded to gigabit broadband, and the telecommunications company sent people to do various renovations, including changing cables and routers. Taking advantage of this upgrade, I also replaced some equipment. Currently, I feel very satisfied, so I want to take stock and write a blog post.
Upgrading the Network Connection#
Because I need a VPN, while my parents don't, we previously had two routers connected to the optical modem, creating two separate networks. However, this setup caused two issues. First, there was severe interference between the Wi-Fi signals, and sometimes I would only have one bar of signal even when I was less than 5 meters away from the router. Second, there were too many layers of NAT, with the optical modem performing one layer of NAT and the router performing another layer, which was a bit too complicated.
Therefore, during this upgrade, I decided to have a single Wi-Fi network for the whole family. The optical modem would only handle optical signal decoding, while the router would handle the dial-up connection. I chose the Xiaomi AX3600 router because it has received good reviews online and it offers features such as Wi-Fi 6, large memory, and AIOT, which meet my requirements. Actually, I had a bad experience with a Xiaomi router before, but this time, I couldn't resist the positive reviews online, the tempting marketing, and the acceptable price, so I decided to give it a try.
After using it for almost a month, it has been quite stable. The Wi-Fi connection hasn't dropped, and the speed is as expected. The only thing I'm not satisfied with is that there is no third-party ROM available yet, so I can only use the official Xiaomi ROM, which means I can't directly use a VPN on the router. However, the signal is much better compared to the previous router I used, and even after passing through three walls, I still have a good signal and network speed. In order to provide a more stable network environment for some devices in my room, I connected a switch to the router and connected a 2012 MacBook Pro running Linux for building and testing, a Raspberry Pi running Ubuntu Server for hosting a Gitee repository using Docker, a PS4, and two other devices which I will talk about later in this article.
Using an N1 Box as a Secondary Router#
As I mentioned earlier, the AX3600 router cannot directly use a VPN, but I really don't want to configure a VPN for each device. So, I needed a solution that allows me to use a VPN on the router and at the same time saves the number of devices that can be connected to the VPN. Although my VPN provider is very stable (and expensive), it only allows a limited number of devices to be connected simultaneously. Since my girlfriend doesn't have the conditions to use a VPN on her router, it would be best if all the devices on my side only occupy one device slot. The solution to this dilemma is to set up a secondary router.
A secondary router is essentially a hardware proxy. Network requests are first sent to the secondary router, processed, and then sent to the main router. The secondary router shares the same network segment as the main router and does not handle DHCP distribution, so there is no issue with an additional layer of NAT. I chose the N1 box as my secondary router because, first, it has a good cost-performance ratio. The N1 box, which is originally used for mining, has 2GB of RAM, 8GB of ROM, an Amlogic S905D Cortex-A53 processor, and a gigabit network card, all for only 99. The only drawback is that it only has a USB 2.0 interface, but it is more than enough to connect a USB drive for storing surveillance footage. Second, it supports OpenWrt. OpenWrt provides high flexibility for this secondary router. In addition to using it as a secondary router with VPN, I can also use it for ad-blocking, traffic analysis, Samba, Aria2, Transmission, and many other functions.
I connected the switch to the N1 box as well. After configuring it, I tested the VPN and found that it can almost fully utilize the bandwidth of my VPN plan, and there are no issues accessing domestic websites. I am very satisfied with the setup.
Getting the Qnap TS-453B Mini#
Since I already upgraded to gigabit and bought some other things, I couldn't resist the temptation and bought the TS-453B Mini that I had been eyeing for a long time. I didn't set up RAID immediately after receiving it, so it is currently using static disks. I believe cold backup and hot backup are more suitable for my needs. Currently, the TS-453B Mini is mainly used to store my multimedia files, important documents, and real-time Time Machine backups for my work computer. For me, a NAS is just a storage device that gives me peace of mind. So, I don't plan to use Docker or virtualization on the NAS. If I really want to play around with those things, I have my own build machine, several cloud servers, a high-performance server in the lab, and even a DGX workstation, all of which are either x86 or ARM-based. Why would I want to play around with them on a NAS that stores my important data? Also, since I stored my multimedia resources on the NAS, I naturally set up Kodi on my TV in the room, along with the soundbar I bought earlier, so my home theater setup is basically complete.
Using External Monitors is Awesome#
It is well known that I used to look down on using external monitors, until last year when I got my first one, and I can only say it's amazing. So, recently, I got a few more monitors, and now I have three monitors on my desk, forming a 120-degree surround view with me at the center (120 degrees is estimated based on the approximate field of view of a person, which is about 124 degrees). All I can say is, it's truly amazing.
Future Outlook#
To be honest, I don't have any specific plans for the future because I feel everything is perfect right now. Maybe it's because I'm not hardcore enough or my requirements are not high enough. But if any readers have interesting things to share, please bring me along and let's explore together.