Why I gave up Mikrotik - 5 reasons that can affect everyone

Mikrotik routers are bought when you need to achieve something more from the network infrastructure, for example, configure two dozen Firewall rules, enable DPI, divide several Internet providers between clients, and so on. I used the Mirkotik RB2011UIAS-2HND-IN model for more than 4 years, and at one point I got so annoyed that I hid it, as they say, "out of sight - out of mind!".

In this article, I will give you 5 points that I personally encountered, and that you should know about before buying Mikrotik.

1. RouterOS updates may not be compatible with each Other

The first thing I encountered was the inability to update RouterOS from version 6.34.6 to version 6.42. the Problem was that after the update, NAT did not work, in any form, under any conditions. Dancing with a tambourine, updates and rollbacks led to the fact that the router had to be completely reset to factory settings and roll version 6.42 from scratch, then NAT worked. What to do with the 40+ filter rules that are still in the past? It is impossible to restore the configuration from a backup without rolling back the firmware, so I had to remember where everything is written and enter it in the configuration manually.

For the SmB-class model, I consider such antics unacceptable.

2. Instability of the built-in switch

I decided to update RouterOS not because I was afraid of hackers who hacked Mirkotik-and around the world, but because periodically the speed of copying from the NAS dropped from 1 Gbit/s to 200 Mbit/s. An attempt to increase the size of the Jumbo Frame caused the switch to hang and restart the device. By the way, on version 6.42, the freezes disappeared, but the speed dips remained, even though they screwed up the full hardware switching.

3. Incomplete compatibility with the 1GBase-T standard

We are used to the fact that if two network devices support a 1-Gigabit network connection, they will work at a speed of 1 Gbps, but the Mikrotik router broke this paradigm. One autumn evening, I had to connect a computer with a 10-Gigabit Intel X540-T2 network card to RB2011UIAS - and the router didn't see it, as if the network cable was dangling in the air. I was interested in this situation, and I connected another 10-Gigabit computer with an Intel X557-T2 network card - the situation repeated.

Driven by the idea of getting to the truth, I connected a third 10-Gigabit Intel X550-T2 network card - it worked, as it should. Then I connected the 4th 10-Gigabit network card Aquantia AQC107 (read the comparison AQC107 vs Intel X550-T2) - and it worked at a speed of 100 Mbit/s.

All four 10-Gigabit network cards support 1 Gbit/s, but only one of them is working. Continuing my experiments, I connected these network cards to the following switches and routers:

• NetGear GS-105
• NetGear GS-108T
• Netis ST3310GF
• NetGear WNDR4000
• Keenetic Giga KN-1010
• Keenetic Ultra KN-1810

In all cases, even when the switches were connected to Mikrotik, all 10-Gigabit network cards worked at a speed of 1 Gbit/s. Then, without any extra movements, it became clear that the problem was in Mikrotik.

It so happened that I really need to connect a 2-port network card X557-T2 with one port to Mikrotik, and the second to the host, and I didn't want to put a third-party switch in front of Mikrotik, so I contacted technical support. In General, if you don't have 4 devices from different companies running on the 1GBase-T standard, this is a problem of the "whistle everyone up" level, and I was counting on a quick bugfix. Yeah, I ran away.

4. No technical support

I described the situation in as much detail as possible and created a request to Mikrotik technical support (request number 2018112022003151). The site promises us a response within 3 days, but no one answered in 4 or 5 days. I started to be reminded, and about a week later, I was asked to send logs and technical report (support.rif) from the router.

After collecting all the data, I sent it and ... the waiting hours were added up to days, days to weeks, and weeks to months. In General, there is no answer to this day.

5. Slow DNS cache

While I was dealing with re-connecting network ports, resetting and restoring Mikrotik, I assigned Keenetic Giga to be responsible for the Internet, and the first thing I noticed was the speed of working with DNS queries. Keenetic opened sites faster than Mikrotik, and there was a feeling that the" business model " is slowing down the DNS cache. Of course, Keenetic is newer and more powerful, but to confirm my concerns, I connected the ancient NetGear WNDR4000 - the same story: I already forgot that sites can open so quickly, I didn't know that DNS can slow down at all. I returned Mikrotik and rechecked my feelings: Internet surfing was slower on it than on the old Netgear.

What's next?

I read a lot of reviews on forums where ordinary people bought Mikrotik-and on the recommendations of specialists, despaired of setting them up and handed them back. My Mikrotik somehow worked for more than 4 years, and ended up on a minor note. To be honest, I didn't expect such wild glitches or such a reaction from technical support.

Today's world is primarily software, free software that develops independently of hardware. I chose PFsense as a replacement for Mikrotik.