250 Mb/s download maximum on MX64?!?!?!?

[PhotoJoseph]

Holy mother of… I've recently installed an MX64 which coincided with some changes at my ISP, and where I used to get 500 Mbps download speeds, I've been getting only 250 since the changes. I just discovered under Security & SD-WAN > SD-WAN & traffic shaping that I can configure the maximum download speed… and it was set to 250. I tried setting it higher, and was met with the hideous message "Bandwidth download settings for WAN 1 must be between 0.1 Mbps and 250 Mbps, the rated speed for your security appliance."

250 Mbps maximum?!

I'm beside myself right now. Please tell me this is an arbitrary limit that can be changed by Cisco… I mean… this is the year 2020, and connections over 250Mbps aren't that uncommon. My head is about to explode. 

[cmr]

@PhotoJoseph unfortunately it is a hard limit, the MX67/8 has 450Mb and they step up from there.  The MX64 is the baby of the line so isn't really intended for ultrafast connections.

[PhotoJoseph]

Oh man… this is disastrous. My ISP is running gigabit soon. I'm almost afraid to ask, but what model can handle that? 

Thanks for, uh, confirming the ruining of my day 😭

[SoCalRacer]

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@PhotoJoseph wrote:

Oh man… this is disastrous. My ISP is running gigabit soon. I'm almost afraid to ask, but what model can handle that? 

Thanks for, uh, confirming the ruining of my day 😭

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MX250 - Just did one of these for a client

[cmr]

@PhotoJoseph Sorry about that 😒, for 1Gb you'd need an MX250 which is rather more expensive...

[PhotoJoseph]

$10,000… oh, on sale, just $6,000!!

F this I'm out… this Meraki hardware is really nice and all, but clearly not intended for a small business. I can almost stomach the annual fees but hardware like this just to get the bandwidth my ISP is serving me is insanity. 

It was fun while it lasted. Thanks everyone. 

[cmr]

sorry to hear that but we do understand,  quite a few people here are asking when the models will ramp up to the data speeds more commonly seen today.  Come back every once in a while as I don't think it'll be too long.

[PhotoJoseph]

That sounds great, but I can't imagine prices will come down from $10,000 to anything in line with a common router any time soon. I mean, maybe it will, but that's hard to imagine. And I'd guess that the annual license on a $10,000 box is slightly more expensive than on the MX64 would be. 

[JohnD]

If Meraki is listening, this is definitely a problem for even home office owners.

These days we can find symmetric gigabit residential service for $50-60 a month, sometimes less. I think there’s two takeaway points here:

1. The MX64 and 67 SoCs are actually significantly more powerful members of the same SoC families that power consumer routers, and many of those are more than capable of performing NAT and L3 routing at line speed. It would be great to have a mode that provides at least gigabit throughput NAT even if it’s not possible to do traffic shaping, DPI, IPS, and so on.
2. For some of us pro home users, quite honestly I am okay stomaching the hardware cost for a MX250. But a MX250 3 year AdvSec license is an eye watering $16,000. That ongoing cost is a severe dealbreaker especially since from a Meraki standpoint, I bet a 5 person home office with a MX250 vs a 5 person home office with a MX64 is similar in cost. The cost of the MX250 license seems to bake in an assumption that it’s being used in a massive site with more users and inherently more support overhead.

I love love love everything else about the MX series, but as my sites start having gigabit available, users demand being able to download at gigabit speeds.

[NolanHerring]

I'll just drop this here....

https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-routing-switching/products/udm-pro

[PhotoJoseph]

Dang Nolan that looks pretty great. I won’t deny that this Meraki system is nice, and I dunno, maybe Cisco size prices are reasonable for Cisco size companies, but not for lil’ ol’ me. That UniFi looks like it has VPN too, which is why I installed this MX in the first place. 

I still can’t believe I’ve been throttled to 250Mbps. So ludicrous. 

Thanks

-Joseph 

[JohnD]

I don’t want to get into it here but my Ubiquiti Dream Machine is more of a Nightmare Machine. I highly recommend doing some homework on reviews as it looks amazing on paper but it is so buggy. 

if you’re looking for alternatives for the smaller MXes I honestly would suggest looking at pfsense or opnsense on a small firewall appliance (you can find many popular ones online).

But having been around the block a few times I am here because I want to use an affordable priced MX. It is just so elegant. But this appliance sizing is barely scaling with medium tier consumer internet in 2020. 

[PhotoJoseph]

@JohnD yikes… see that’s the problem isn’t it. I’m not an IT guy. Don’t want to be. I just need a system that works. The only reason I installed this MX was because I needed VPN for a project, and had this MX in a box from a webinar I watched a couple of years ago, so decided to install it. Fell in love with the configuration and capabilities but that was before I realized this was the reason I’ve been throttled to 250Mbps. 

Honestly… a freaking google Nest WiFi will do what I need (except the VPN, but that’s a temporary need, and I can add that relatively cheaply if I really need it). I should probably stop f**ing around and just go back to my safe little easy world of consumer IT 😉 

[SoCalRacer]

I will say this, we dropped Ubiquiti as our preferred network stack years ago and haven't looked back.

Ubiquiti Support = Forum only

Meraki = 24/7/365

With Ubiquiti if you want to spend tons of time supporting it and working out kinks and doing all of that alone, to save some money then it is a good fit. Good support/warranty is worth it's weight in gold when you have a major issue.

[NolanHerring]

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@SoCalRacer wrote:

I will say this, we dropped Ubiquiti as our preferred network stack years ago and haven't looked back.

Ubiquiti Support = Forum only

Meraki = 24/7/365

With Ubiquiti if you want to spend tons of time supporting it and working out kinks and doing all of that alone, to save some money then it is a good fit. Good support/warranty is worth it's weight in gold when you have a major issue.

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Haha, so let me be clear I'm not trying to start a vendor war here.

I use Cisco, Meraki, for many years in the corporate world. They are enterprise for sure. And obviously when it comes to support, you get what you pay for. Support to me for Ubnt is open a case to RMA, or go to forums lol. So yeah, that sucks.

At home however, I use what I can afford, and UBNT happens to fall into that category. I've been a big fan of them for many years on the wireless side because their products are rock solid for crazy pricing.  I hate seeing customers pay thousands of dollars for outdoor PTP networks that have licenses locking throughput, when a UBNT setup for 300 bucks can do the same and for more.

I've only recently started to branch out from their wireless to their other products. I like how they have a full stack from security appliance, to switches, to video security etc.  I prefer to keep the entire ecosystem the same (like Meraki for example). I just need to be able to afford it lol.

pfSense is another fantastic product, just a little more DIY on your side though.

For me the UDM-Pro which I just got recently has been a pleasant experience, however I did watch a good number of YouTube video reviews and it most certainly did have lots of bugs when it first hit (running 1.7.2 currently) and so far I have not run into anything yet (fingers crossed). I also have the Unifi switches, wireless, and video/protect for a full stack and loving it so far. 😃

[PhotoJoseph]

Thanks for that @NolanHerring — I appreciate the info. I just need to accept that Meraki is not a consumer or even SMB product and move on 😉 

[SoCalRacer]

That is the same limits I see for MX64 and is showing in the below link.

https://meraki.cisco.com/lib/pdf/meraki_whitepaper_mx_sizing_guide.pdf