I'm getting rid of my Unifi Dream Router…

so I recently made a video about the unified dream router and in that video I talked about how it might just be the only unified device that most people need but in this video I'm going to talk about why I'm getting rid of my UDR and switching to this thing the udm SE hi everyone welcome to another tech talk with Samir where I talk about anything and everything related to technology in my life although recently it feels like I'm only talking about my unify home network but that's because I've been making a lot of changes to it and I want to bring you guys along with me as I make these changes so recently I had switched from my old unified security gateway to the unified dream router in my video about it I talked about why I switched and how it became the brain of my entire home network it's basically a network controller a router a switch an access point an NVR all in one device I also talked about how for most people the UDR just may be the only device they need to get into the UniFi ecosystem so what's with this video why am I switching away from my UDR well there's a few reasons and I'm gonna get to them in a bit but here's what I'm replacing it with it's the unified dream machine special edition or udm SC for short this box is actually empty because I already have it up and running in my network closet but let's just pretend it's in here similar to the UDR this device also is a network controller our switch a router and an NVR all-in-one device but the similarities end right there because one thing this thing is not is an access point and that's because as you'll see later in this video the UDR and the udm SE are intended for completely different crowds if you watch one of my unify related videos from last year you know that I've had my eyes on this particular device for a while I always thought that this is the device that I would ultimately upgrade to from my USG back then Inside the Box you get the udmse itself along with a small box that contains the power cable and some rack mounting gear taking a closer look at the device itself you have a small LCD screen on the left side this is something ubiquity has been adding to all their recent devices for displaying things like IP addresses Port information and some other troubleshooting information just as I've said with the other devices it's nice to have but once I have everything up and running I likely won't be looking at the screen too often one thing to note is that the LCD is a touch screen unlike the one on the UDR so you can navigate around to see different information on the udmse screen all also in the front is a hard drive slot this is to add storage for keeping surveillance footage if you have UniFi protect cameras this does also have a built-in 128 gig SSD similar to the UDR but like I've said before 128 gigs is practically nothing when it comes to storing video footage the difference here is that you can actually use a 3.5 inch hard drive to expand storage whereas on the UDR you are limited to only micro SD cards so you have much more options when it comes to the types of drives as well as the storage capacity the 128 gigs of built-in storage is actually one of those features that distinguishes the udm SE from its cousin the udm pro I know I'm switching from an UDR to this device but most people that are looking at this device are likely contemplating between this and the udm pro so I'll be pointing out certain things that distinguishes this one from the udm pro so on that note perhaps the biggest thing that distinguishes the udm SE from the udm pro are the ethernet ports all eight Lan ports now have power over ethernet six of them are regular Poe and two of them are Poe plus this is likely the biggest reason for the 130 dollar price difference between the two devices and honestly if you don't need these ports to be poe just go with the udm pro and save yourself the 130 bucks unless if you specifically need a 2.5 gig RJ45 moan Port because that's another difference between this device and the udm pro which only has a gigabit RJ45 Wan Port as we get more isps offering multi-gig internet one gig when ports May soon start to become limitations for some situations like small businesses so having multi-gig compatibility will definitely future proof your setup that being said even the udm pro has multi-gig Wan capability through the SFP plus Wan Port which both the udm SC and the udm pro has the SFP Plus Port can support up to 10 gig wind speeds so when it comes to Future proofing for multi-gig internet both the udm SC and the udm pro are very capable in addition to the SFP plus one for there's also an SFP plus Lan Port capable of 10 gig speeds this can serve as an Uplink connection to the rest of your network to minimize bottlenecks but you can also change the SFP plus Wan port to a lan Port through the network controller so if you have two devices that you want talking to each other at 10 gig speeds like maybe a workstation and a Nas you can do that without getting a 10 gig switch so to summarize the only major differences between the udm pro and the udmsc are the poe ethernet ports the built-in 128 gigs of storage and the 2.5 gig RJ45 Wan Port once again if none of these things are essential for you just go with the udm pro and save the money so why did I choose the udm SE instead of the udm pro and why am I switching from the UDR at all for me personally the poe points got me sold on this device at this moment I don't have a Poe switch I had two Poe ports on the UDR and that's it so to power my third access point I was actually using a Poe injector so it was a bit messy so Having Eight Poe ports will go a long way in allowing me to expand my network because not only will it power my access points I can also add a couple of surveillance cameras and some small switches and get them powered directly from this device so because of the lack of Poe ports on the udm pro the udm SE was the only logical choice for me between the two now before I get into why I'm switching away from the UDR take a moment to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already this is a very small Channel and every one of your support goes a long way and while you're at it make sure to also hit the thumbs up button so the UDR on paper sounds like it has all the bells and whistles that the udm SE has and if you just compare features honestly the UDR is probably more feature packed from the outside I mean the udm SE does not have a built-in access point so unlike the UDR the udm SE is not a complete solution to a home network and that's precisely because of the difference in the target audience for these devices the UDR is designed to be the one device you bring home to solve all your home networking needs you hook it up to your isp's modem and you're pretty much all set you get very good Wi-Fi some ethernet ports for your wired devices and has a built-in controller for you to make all the configuration changes the addition of the access point is what ultimately makes it appeal to the average person looking to soup up their home network because let's face it the average person is just looking to use their devices off of Wi-Fi and that's the key here with the UDR they're trying to Target the average person the same person that's going to the big box stores to look for a Wi-Fi router because their isps one has terrible coverage it's even priced that way at 200 bucks it's actually competitively priced compared to other high-end consumer Wi-Fi routers the udm SE on the other hand is designed more for people that want to be a little more involved with networking I'm talking about small business Network admins or enthusiasts like myself the people buying the udm SC and even the udm pro they're likely going to buy other networking devices to integrate with a router like this like maybe some switches and some access points also a rack mountable device like this is intended to be put in a network closet whereas the UDR is designed to be put in an open area so that the Wi-Fi can reach the places where people actually hang out also even though the UDR on paper has a lot of the same features that the udm SE and the uni em pro has they're all a bit dumbed down I mean yes you can technically run the network controller unified protect unified talk and unify access all on the UDR but you can only run two of them at a time and once you start looking at the internal specs you can see why the UDR only has two gigs of RAM and they don't really specify the type of ram DDM SC on the other hand has four gigs of ddr4 RAM similarly the UDR has a dual core CPU while the udm SE has a quad-core CPU with higher clock speeds and these lower specs on the UDR actually shows its limitations in several places even though you can technically run two applications I'm only running one because I don't have any devices that go with the other applications but even then the RAM on the UDR was almost maxed out at all times I can't imagine the experience being very good if you do run two laps and even while running only one app you can quickly see some of the limitations caused by the lowest backs like in the network app you can turn on threat management which is their version of intrusion detection and prevention but the threat categories that the UDR can protect against is significantly dumbed down compared to the udmse also based on what I've read online turning on threat Management on the UDR can hamper your internet speeds if you have one gig internet I personally never experienced this because my internet is only 300 megabit and is done just fine with those speeds but the one thing I did notice is just how much slower the udr's user interface is when I'm browsing around either on the web browser or on the UniFi mobile app it takes significantly longer to refresh the dashboards on the UDR than it does on my udmse even going from page to page on the web interface is a lot more clunky on the UDR also if you look at unified protect for example yes technically you can connect cameras to the UDR and have it record footage but like I said before you can only expand storage using a Micro SD card and as we all know micro SD cards aren't exactly designed for continuous write operations so the use cases for UniFi protect on the UDR is very limited in comparison with all that said the UDR is still an amazing device and everything I've praised about it in the past is still true for most people it really is the best unified device to get into the ecosystem most of the flaws that I pointed out will never affect majority of the people out there the average person isn't going to go into the user interface looking at dashboards very often so the sluggishness of the interface will not affect them and the Wi-Fi you get from the built-in access point is excellent from my testing that brings me to my specific scenario there's basically three reasons why I'm switching the first reason is actually something I just praised about the UDR I have my networking gear in a closet which is kind of in a hidden area within my home it's not exactly the best place to keep a wireless access point because it's so isolated from where everyone uses their devices so I'm not able to take advantage of the built-in wireless access point but I also can't turn off the access point resulting in some overlap of coverage area with my other access points this sometimes confuses my devices and they don't always connect to the right access point as I'm roaming around the house so yes you can have too much Wi-Fi coverage the second reason is actually rack mount ability so I'm in the process of planning out a revamp of my network closet currently I just have a small bookshelf where I keep all my networking gear not a pretty sight but I'm hoping to organize it in a way where I incorporate a network rack to tidy things up so the more devices I have that are rack mountable the easier it will be to organize things the third reason is the performance despite the specs the UDR will perform just fine for most people but my usage case is not exactly the same as the average person I like to dig around the unify dashboard to play around with different features and settings all the time the clunkier user interface on the UDR really gets frustrating at times for me also I recently got a fiber internet at the house and our internet provider supports speeds up to 5 gigabits now I don't ever see myself upgrading to speeds like that but I am considering upgrading to one gig soon so having a router that can do threat management at speeds like that will make a big difference when I do upgrade with all that said here's what my home network looks like right now I have an ethernet cable going from one of the Lan ports of my isp's modem into the RJ45 Wan port on my udmsc I have my three access points connecting directly to the udmse thanks to the new Poe ports on this device I then have a DAC cable connecting from the SFP plus Lan Port of the udmsc going into my UniFi switch aggregation this is my 10 gig switch I have all my high bandwidth devices connected to this switch like my network attached storage devices and my video editing rig this way not only does those devices talk to each other at multi gig speeds they also have a multi-gay connection back to the router and then from my 10 gig switch I have a DAC cable going into one of the SFP ports on my 24 Port gigabit switch most of my wired devices are connected to this switch I am however contemplating whether I even need this switch anymore because the 8 ports on the udm SE will go a long way for me and I can always get a smaller switch to expand if needed I just don't know if I need 24 extra ports especially since it's not a Poe switch and I can't connect any cameras to it but yeah that's where my network stands at this point in summary the UDR is still a great device and I highly recommend it for most people if you can find it in stock but on the other hand I'm super excited to have switched to the udmse mainly because I like to switch things up and this thing opens up a whole bunch of new avenues for future expansion anyways thanks for sticking with me till the end of this video as always stay safe and I'll see you again on the next one

Channel: TechTalk with Samir

Views: 129,099

Keywords: unifi, unifi home network, unifi dream router, unifi dream machine, unifi dream machine pro, udm pro, udm se, unifi dream machine se, unifi dream machine special edition, UDR, home network, unifi access point, wifi, mesh wifi, wireless access point, ubiquiti, ubiquiti unifi, home networking, home network rack, 10 gig networking, 10gbe, 10 gigabit switch, unifi switch aggregation, aggregation switch, poe switch, power over ethernet, home network tour, smart home tour

Id: YSFo-DfmucM

Length: 12min 50sec (770 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 17 2022