[review] QWA-AC2600 Part2 - 2022

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Moogle Stiltzkin
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[review] QWA-AC2600 Part2 - 2022

Post by Moogle Stiltzkin »

this model is eol. has since been replaced by the QXP-W6-AX200
https://www.qnap.com/en/product/qxp-w6-ax200


just a follow up addon from the original review. just to addon additional observations after using this for a while.
viewtopic.php?f=45&t=144190



this is a more recent performance test.

wifi 5ghz using android smartphone in same room as ap. Openspeedtest is hosted on qnap using docker, so this result is not testing my internet speed whatsoever; it's a direct speed test from android mobile to the qnap nas over wireless using that QWA addon.

Image


so do i still use this ap over my existing ubiquiti unifi ap ? yes.

my ubiquiti is in another room, so i don't get the best signal from this other room. so seeing as this wireless addon is here, i can just login to that and get a better wifi signal.

i can access the qnap wirelessly, and also still have internet access. so this is what i am using it for.

in my ap mode configuration, i do not have DHCP server enabled on the qnap. Instead the qnap gateway points to my qotom pfsense router. So when i connect to the QNAP via it's the qwa wireless, it issues the lan ip for the connected client device from the DHCP server running from the pfsense router.


that said, i do believe something like a mesh wifi would be better. like a tplink deco, then u spread the units around to have a solid wifi signal all over (even better if u use it in a wired backhaul mode if u are able to), and also able to switch over to the closest unit automatically for seamless wifi.


but right now with this setup using QWA, doesn't seem possible to do something similar like that. Instead i have to connect directly to the accesspoint i setup for it. But if i move to a different room, then i would have to switch to the other unifi ap manually. In that example, it's not a good experience if you had to keep switching manually rather than an auto seamless experience.


wireless ap station signal reports as poor. but i used 2 different tools on android that report -52 dbm ish which certainly isn't a poor signal, so i don't think ap station is reporting correctly on this.


from ap station you can change the wifi channel. but you are unable to scan the neighbourhood wifi to assess what channel you should use.

however if you go to virtual switch, enable wifi client from there, only then will it offer you an option to scan :' ....

not a big deal (because i usually just use an android app like wifiman to do that assessment) but weird why it's like this. Using an ubiquiti unifi ap as an example, i can go in the UI for that and run a wifi scan, so why can't qnap do this as well when using wifi ap mode?


And another thing, i cannot adjust the signal strength for the wifi addon. I wanted to make this adjustment to lower the signal strength because i want to lower interference and use it in a small area so it doesn't conflict with unifi ap i'm using in the other room. but there is no setting to adjust the signal strength. but the ubiquiti has this (low, medium, high). So it's unfortunate it's missing this setting :( which also leads me to point out, when comparing the settings available for adjustment vs say a ubiquiti unifi ap, it's much more minimalist, just the bare minimum settings for setting a wifi ap, or to connect to an existing wireless ap. it's only when you want to make even finer setting adjustments will you be complaining about the lack of options to tune.

*update

for this qwa i could set it on a higher channel which my ubiquiti unifi is unable to (my particular unifi ap is limited in the 5ghz channel range). So there is no interference.



for guest wifi/iot vlan, i just connect to the ubiquiti unifi where this was setup on. only if i need wifi access direct to the qnap and also need the best wifi performance and this ap happened to be closest would i then switch to the qwa ap. when connecting to unifi guest wifi, i am unable to connect to the qnap nas, which is as intended because they are on different vlans :mrgreen:



if you want to just access the qnap only wirelessly using this card, you could (you can even have DHCP server running on the QNAP and use it without internet if u wanted to). but i doubt that is an ideal setup for most people. also initially you would still have to connect to the qnap wiredly for the initial setup (then unwire when you are done).



for best performance, connecting direct to the qnap via switch using ethernet is still the best for me. i'm using 2.5gbe wired network setup. the wireless is only for mobile devices that have no choice but to use wireless since that is what is most convenient for those types of clients :)
Last edited by Moogle Stiltzkin on Fri Dec 02, 2022 1:13 pm, edited 4 times in total.
NAS
[Main Server] QNAP TS-877 (QTS) w. 4tb [ 3x HGST Deskstar NAS & 1x WD RED NAS ] EXT4 Raid5 & 2 x m.2 SATA Samsung 850 Evo raid1 +16gb ddr4 Crucial+ QWA-AC2600 wireless+QXP PCIE
[Backup] QNAP TS-653A (Truenas Core) w. 4x 2TB Samsung F3 (HD203WI) RaidZ1 ZFS + 8gb ddr3 Crucial
[^] QNAP TL-D400S 2x 4TB WD Red Nas (WD40EFRX) 2x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf, Raid5
[^] QNAP TS-509 Pro w. 4x 1TB WD RE3 (WD1002FBYS) EXT4 Raid5
[^] QNAP TS-253D (Truenas Scale)
[Mobile NAS] TBS-453DX w. 2x Crucial MX500 500gb EXT4 raid1

Network
Qotom Pfsense|100mbps FTTH | Win11, Ryzen 5600X Desktop (1x2tb Crucial P50 Plus M.2 SSD, 1x 8tb seagate Ironwolf,1x 4tb HGST Ultrastar 7K4000)


Resources
[Review] Moogle's QNAP experience
[Review] Moogle's TS-877 review
https://www.patreon.com/mooglestiltzkin
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Moogle Stiltzkin
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Re: [review] QWA-AC2600 Part2 - 2022

Post by Moogle Stiltzkin »

for completeness, i tried using the ap client mode. so rather than setup ap direct on the qnap, instead u connect from the qnap wireless to an existing wireless ap, in my case the ubiquiti unifi.

so you'd be thinking, so then you'd be thinking if your closest to the qwa, it will connect to that ya? nope.

Instead you will be connecting via the ubiquiti ap, then from there to the qnap. i checked the performance and it was abysmal compared to ap mode. (hence why i wouldn't use this mode setup)

so what is ap client mode for? it's basically just to wirelessly extend to the qnap without using wired. But you will still be accesing through the ubiquiti unifi ap, not the qwa ap directly. I would probably never use this type of setup.

You can only connect to the qwa directly via ap station wireless ap mode. (this setup is a bit more reasonable and i'd probably use it until i get a proper mesh wifi setup to replace it)
NAS
[Main Server] QNAP TS-877 (QTS) w. 4tb [ 3x HGST Deskstar NAS & 1x WD RED NAS ] EXT4 Raid5 & 2 x m.2 SATA Samsung 850 Evo raid1 +16gb ddr4 Crucial+ QWA-AC2600 wireless+QXP PCIE
[Backup] QNAP TS-653A (Truenas Core) w. 4x 2TB Samsung F3 (HD203WI) RaidZ1 ZFS + 8gb ddr3 Crucial
[^] QNAP TL-D400S 2x 4TB WD Red Nas (WD40EFRX) 2x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf, Raid5
[^] QNAP TS-509 Pro w. 4x 1TB WD RE3 (WD1002FBYS) EXT4 Raid5
[^] QNAP TS-253D (Truenas Scale)
[Mobile NAS] TBS-453DX w. 2x Crucial MX500 500gb EXT4 raid1

Network
Qotom Pfsense|100mbps FTTH | Win11, Ryzen 5600X Desktop (1x2tb Crucial P50 Plus M.2 SSD, 1x 8tb seagate Ironwolf,1x 4tb HGST Ultrastar 7K4000)


Resources
[Review] Moogle's QNAP experience
[Review] Moogle's TS-877 review
https://www.patreon.com/mooglestiltzkin
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Moogle Stiltzkin
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Re: [review] QWA-AC2600 Part2 - 2022

Post by Moogle Stiltzkin »

seems the more advanced wifi features are reserved for the other wifi products like mesh wifi, or wireless router.

they use qurouter for the software settings/management. never used this before but you can check reviews only that explore how that looks and works. but clearly it has more options compared to wireless ap station for wifi settings/features.

QNAP QMiroPlus-201W NAS & Tri-Band Mesh WiFi Router Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IOSBu2O5YI

https://nascompares.com/qnap-qmiroplus- ... -review-2/


this qmiro is sort of a hybrid of a nas and a wireless router/ap. normally people would either want a wireless router, dedicated wireless ap, or wifi mesh. now you are adding a nas feature that some might not want to pay for especially when they already have a standard dedicated nas (basically feels like a niche type product). but like the youtube pointed out, you could possibly use this as a backup location (useful if you didn't have one already), so there is that.


only reason i mention this other product is so you can compare the difference between it and the wireless addon card (and more specifically how the mesh and wireless router using qurouter software had more wifi settings to tinker around with vs the addon wireless card). i don't know about the newer wireless addon card with wifi6, but i assume it works similarly like the old one (they both use wireless ap station)
NAS
[Main Server] QNAP TS-877 (QTS) w. 4tb [ 3x HGST Deskstar NAS & 1x WD RED NAS ] EXT4 Raid5 & 2 x m.2 SATA Samsung 850 Evo raid1 +16gb ddr4 Crucial+ QWA-AC2600 wireless+QXP PCIE
[Backup] QNAP TS-653A (Truenas Core) w. 4x 2TB Samsung F3 (HD203WI) RaidZ1 ZFS + 8gb ddr3 Crucial
[^] QNAP TL-D400S 2x 4TB WD Red Nas (WD40EFRX) 2x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf, Raid5
[^] QNAP TS-509 Pro w. 4x 1TB WD RE3 (WD1002FBYS) EXT4 Raid5
[^] QNAP TS-253D (Truenas Scale)
[Mobile NAS] TBS-453DX w. 2x Crucial MX500 500gb EXT4 raid1

Network
Qotom Pfsense|100mbps FTTH | Win11, Ryzen 5600X Desktop (1x2tb Crucial P50 Plus M.2 SSD, 1x 8tb seagate Ironwolf,1x 4tb HGST Ultrastar 7K4000)


Resources
[Review] Moogle's QNAP experience
[Review] Moogle's TS-877 review
https://www.patreon.com/mooglestiltzkin
johnbarmat
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Re: [review] QWA-AC2600 Part2 - 2022

Post by johnbarmat »

From what I have found out, the QXA-W6-AX200 only serves so that the NAS has a connection to the main router of the house via Wi-Fi, for those cases in which it is not possible to connect it via Ethernet, but this model cannot be used as AP.

I am hesitating to buy the QWA-AC2600, eol, to have AP on my QNAP TS-264 from the smartphone inside the house. It has an expensive price.

In addition to the official router of my internet provider, which has an inefficient Wi-Fi signal coverage, I use an Asus TUF-AX3000 router to improve coverage throughout the house without causing traffic jams and the QNAP is also connected to the Asus via Ethernet, also improving the security for accessing the NAS over the internet from my smartphone from outside the home, as recommended by Qnap after the Qlocker ransomware attack on its NAS.
NAS
[Main Server] QNAP TS-264, 8gb ddr4 Transcend sodimm, 2x500gb Ssd Wd Red SN700 cache, 2x10tb Hdd 3,5 Wd Red Pro
[Backup] External Hdd 3,5 Wd Elements Desktop 10tb usb3

NetWork
Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 Pro
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