Synology RT2600ac – 4x4 dual-band Gigabit Wi-Fi router, MU-MIMO, powerful parental controls, Threat Prevention, bandwidth management, VPN, expandable coverage with mesh Wi-Fi

I'm very pleased with my purchase. We have 3 Windows computers, 6 streaming televisions (2 in use at most times), and various (10 or so) home automation devices connected via WIFI. The internet is 300/300 Mb fiber. Everything has been working perfectly with no burps or hiccups. Every device that can connect at 5ghz does so.Below are the highlights. I've worked in IT and have had some experience with firewalls.Pros:1. Strong WIFI. Smart connect feature will automatically pick to fastest reliable speed to connect with the client device.2. Mesh setup is very easy with either wired or wireless access points.3. Safe Access protects web users by filtering against threat intelligence and Google Safe Browsing database.4. Threat Prevention feature to monitor network traffic to alert/block network threats.5. Initial setup installs router with all inbound ports blocked, optional features disabled, and internet access to management interface disabled.Cons:1. Firewall logging is non-existent. This is important if you need to research why the device is not working as expected.2. Initial setup encourages setting up external access to management interface. You're asking to be attacked/hacked if you enable this.3. Initial setup enables UPNP on the LAN/Wireless interface. This makes your internal network less secure.4. Threat Prevention app requires some "fine tuning" to suppress false positives threat messages.I have an addition on my home that devices were connecting at slower speeds. I've set up an additional mesh point (mr2600ac) with a wired backhaul. The setup was simple and it works very effectively.The best practices for keeping this router secure are pretty much the same as any router.1. Keep the firmware updated.2. Turn off internet access to management interface.3. Use the Safe Access and Threat Prevention apps. Set the databases for those to automatically update.4. Keep any features you do not need turned off.5. Log in periodically and make sure things are as they should be.

The MR2000AC HW has a nice design with no pointy antennae, and has 4 cores. The setup/configuration process was fairly straightforward and is not so smart that you can actually have an advanced network downstream of the device. The LAN and WAN ports are clearly marked and usable - no forced magic in trying to determine the router interface, though it can do that. Initially during setup the MR2000AC unit wants to be "the router" and communicate directly with the modem, but this step can be skipped. Ultimately, I want the pair (I bought two of the same for a mesh) to be just an AP (access point) - I already have a openbsd firewall gateway for my network. I was able to setup the wifi address range and carve out the high end of class C for DHCP, using the same class C ip range as my old netgear unit, but only allowing the synology the high end of the IP range - made for an easy migration. I was also able to connect/direct the synology wifi MR2000AC to talk to my local router, and then it all just started working! It took less than an hour to setup and adding the sub unit was a snap. Confusingly, I had difficulty with the manual in setting up the sub AP - that extends the mesh - I could not find the area in the manual to do it. But, after walking through the software - it looks like a virtual desktop in a web browser - I was quickly able to connect the 2nd MR2000AC via the "Wi-Fi Connect" applet. It's so cool that the MR2000AC uses a 5GHz back channel to talk to the main unit; that's how mesh works I guess . The software has a nice javascript overlay box with the status on each of the MR2000AC units, and you can observe and inspect bandwidth, mac, and frequency of each device connected. I notice it has support for SNMP, SMB, and can likely act as a sort of low redundancy NAS. I 'saw' the SMB endpoint on the network in my roku or firestick when trying to scan for screen mirroring. The software is extensive, and easy to use. I was able to upgrade the firmware easily and it's smart about it - staging the download before you install. A very polished product. It's only been a week, but I love the HW/SW. Our old netgear was getting crushed physically by the covid19 zooming, etc, and migrating to the MR2000AC pair resolved streaming problems. I placed the mesh units physically separate as to enable the 1300 sqft as best as possibly with minimal effort. The entire house is now covered, onto the deck, and into the backyard, and upstairs as well in the furthest room - still has sufficient connectivity. I put the MR2000AC synologyrouter in the basement connected to the gigabit switch, and the 2nd MR2000AC is on the first floor on the other side of the house - say 20 ft from the synologyrouter. It seems like clients reconnect to the other units with no disconnections. It's awesome.