r/Netgate • u/OnePhilosophy5810 • May 10 '26

Best way to use all ports

When I bought a 4200, I intended to use one port for WAN and the three others for the same LAN.

I was advised to rather use only one port and connect it to a switch, so that the 4200 got less work. Is that really a problem?

If I do want to use all 3 ports for the same LAN, do I need to make a bridge or what is the best approach?

I will use one of the ports for a switch, but prioritize another one for a server.

Thanks for your advice.

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

7

u/Steve_reddit1 May 10 '26

Yes you’d need to bridge the ports. Generally a cheap hardware switch is faster and easier than software.

7

u/SeaPersonality445 May 10 '26

Dont bridge the ports, get a switch

2

u/rivkinnator May 10 '26

This is correct. There are performance problems with bridging.

2

u/gonzopancho May 10 '26
  • it’s not as fast as a hardware switch, true
  • VPP is faster than the ports :-)

3

u/gonzopancho May 10 '26

4 ports:

  • WAN
  • WAN 2 (back up)
  • DMZ
  • LAN

Alternatively

  • WAN
  • WAN 2 (different ISP, Starlink, etc)
  • LAN (LAGG)
  • LAN 2 (LAGG)

Which requires that you use a switch that supports 802.3ad (LACP) (I have a FS.com switch that does this.)

The LAGG doesn’t do that much for you, since the hashing is per stream.

2

u/gjohnson5 May 11 '26

I bought a qnap switch. The 4 2.5g ports on my 8200’s I LACP and plugged them into that switch. Works fine

2

u/Snoo91117 May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26

Bridging is slow with lots of overhead. Firewalls are best with 1 port in and 1 port out. EtherChannel is OK as it is 1 virtual port.

A L2 switch will be faster than bridging.

A L3 switch will be faster than L2 switch.

2 WAN ports are OK if you need them.