discussion Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Max

[sswilson]

Since there's at least a couple of us here with these I figured I'd create a dedicated thread for impressions and any questions folks might have.

Cloud Gateway Max NS - Ubiquiti Store

Compact 2.5G Cloud Gateway with 30+ UniFi device / 300+ client support, 1.5 Gbps IPS routing, and selectable NVR storage.

ca.store.ui.com

 

[sswilson]

JD posted in another thread when this device finally hit the market so there's quite a bit of back and forth in the thread starting here....

Dual Nic PCIe card for PFsense on an older intel board?

Interesting how experiences differ, I've yet to have an issue with updates on Pfsense. I used it from 2014 to 2022 and I really don't think I had a single update that didn't require a reinstall.

hardwarecanucks.com

 

[sswilson]

So far, my impressions have been pretty good. Ticks off most of the boxes that folks running unifi APs would want, and includes their other apps for folks running things like cameras as well as router functions and ID/IPS. If you've got Unifi APs and have considered grabbing a Cloudkey this device is the one you've been waiting for.

Most important for me was the 5X 2.5GB ethernet ports, although it could be argued that they should have included a minimum of 2X POE.

Setup was pretty straight forward, and I had no issues adopting my existing network backup once it had completed it's initial setup/updates.

 

[sswilson]

One complaint I have is that it seems to lose topology over a period of time. APs (and their connected devices) connected through a third party POE switch appear correctly after a power cycle on the switch, but relatively quickly the OS stops displaying them unless I power cycle the switch again.

Hopefully this is a version bug that will be resolved by an update.

 

[JD]

Hopefully this is a version bug that will be resolved by an update.

I would recommend enabling Early Access in your UI account: https://account.ui.com/profile, and at least keep an eye on the release threads, https://community.ui.com/releases. Make sure to enable the EA filter.

I've ran EA on all my Ubiquiti gear now for quite a few years and haven't hit any major issue that made my network unusable. There can be some pretty lengthy gaps between EA > RC > Official.

That being said though, lots of people post about Topology being broken in any given release, so it may be worth sending them a support file too since it sounds like you have something that's reproducible.

 

[Caldezar]

I've been a Ubiquiti fan for a long time. Not only do I run a UDM-SE at the house, I also have UDM devices across most of my client's offices. They're hard to beat for the SMB market. Although I'm not a huge fan of they're camera software. Everything else is pretty solid though.

The spec sheet says multi-WAN balancing on the Gateway Max, but there's only one WAN port. Can one of the LAN ports be converted?

The reason this is so budget friendly is BECAUSE there's no PoE. Ubiquiti has always charged a pretty hefty premium to move up to PoE devices. The good news is that their 'Lite 8 PoE' is a great, budget option if you're just looking to power a couple AP's or a few cameras.

 

[sswilson]

Yes, there is an option to designate port 4 as a secondary wan port.

 

[sswilson]

I'm currently trying the setup with one of my two APs connected via a 1GB injector (the ap ports are only 1GB anyways) and leaving the second one on the 2.5GB POE switch to see if that resolves the topology issues. I suspect it might be the fact that it sees 2 "discrete" devices connecting through the same port that's throwing off the topology.

This works fine for now, but if I upgrade to the U7 Pro models I'd need to get my hands on a 2.5GB POE injector which are pretty much the same price as a full 5 port POE switch.

 

[sswilson]

One of the things I noticed about the network app on this device is the return of scheduled channel optimizations. That disappeared from the stand-alone network app quite a few versions ago.

 

[Izerous]

Although I'm not a huge fan of they're camera software. Everything else is pretty solid though.

I found converting over to a UNVR that the camera software runs a lot smoother, seeking and such just feels a little more responsive than when I was running just off the UDM-Pro

I suspect that might be a similar problem here is that there is a point where your just asking too much processing power from some of these all in one devices.