Plugging in USB ethernet adapters to wireless routers, why hasn't anyone tried this.

[Bean Cooling]

Alright, so you know how most routers have a USB port that most people who use it use it for printers, NAS use with flash drives and external hard drives, and LTE connectivity. Considering that wireless routers with 2.5Gb ports cost so much, and with the knowledge even the slowest USB 3.0 ports are 5gbps, why haven't more people used their router's USB ports for plugging in 2.5Gbe and 5Gbe adapters? (my best guess would be that it wouldn't be directly connected to the switch chip) Hell it's to the point where I couldn't find any discussions or even pictures of the practice online.

[Alex Atkin UK]

31 minutes ago, Bean Cooling said:

Alright, so you know how most routers have a USB port that most people who use it use it for printers, NAS use with flash drives and external hard drives, and LTE connectivity. Considering that wireless routers with 2.5Gb ports cost so much, and with the knowledge even the slowest USB 3.0 ports are 5gbps, why haven't more people used their router's USB ports for plugging in 2.5Gbe and 5Gbe adapters? (my best guess would be that it wouldn't be directly connected to the switch chip) Hell it's to the point where I couldn't find any discussions or even pictures of the practice online.

Because device support is based on what drivers were compiled into the kernel, I'd be kinda surprised if they compiled in the USB Ethernet driver, they don't always have the NDIS driver for LTE, depends on the model.

It takes a fair bit of CPU grunt to push 2.5Gbit too so it would have to be a high-end model, which often have 2.5Gbit already.  Though that could be a workaround for those that only have a single port, if supported.

All routers with OpenWRT/DD-WRT support should work with USB Ethernet adapters however, but how much they can push through them will vary depending again on the CPU power available.

[Bean Cooling]

10 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Because device support is based on what drivers were compiled into the kernel, I'd be kinda surprised if they compiled in the USB Ethernet driver, they don't always have the NDIS driver for LTE, depends on the model.

It takes a fair bit of CPU grunt to push 2.5Gbit too so it would have to be a high-end model, which often have 2.5Gbit already.  Though that could be a workaround for those that only have a single port, if supported.

All routers with OpenWRT/DD-WRT support should work with USB Ethernet adapters however, but how much they can push through them will vary depending again on the CPU power available.

Would the best way to find out if USB ethernet adapters are supported be contacting the manufacturer?

I'm not too worried about CPU power. Because usually the higher end routers with 2.5Gbps ports have the same CPUs as the ones that don't, that being a 1.2-1.8GHz tri or quad core ARM cpu.

 

As for OpenWRT, I wouldn't think that would practical, especially for those wanting to utilize the features of the router's existing OS (mainly AImesh and Onemesh for Asus and TP-link routers respectively)

[Alex Atkin UK]

10 hours ago, Bean Cooling said:

Would the best way to find out if USB ethernet adapters are supported be contacting the manufacturer?

I'm not too worried about CPU power. Because usually the higher end routers with 2.5Gbps ports have the same CPUs as the ones that don't, that being a 1.2-1.8GHz tri or quad core ARM cpu.

 

As for OpenWRT, I wouldn't think that would practical, especially for those wanting to utilize the features of the router's existing OS (mainly AImesh and Onemesh for Asus and TP-link routers respectively)

My assumption would be none of them support it, as the UI also needs the ability to add that adapter to the firewall configuration which if its not designed for it specifically, it wont.  The drivers could be there, but the ability to actually use it missing.