Hardware recommendations
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I seem to have correctly configured pfSense to work in Dual WAN mode, sharing two cable modem connections. This was just a test install before I gear up for the real thing. I was using some spare LinkSys Cable/DSL routers for the test setup. Those things are okay for light browsing, but they can't handle sustained high bandwidth (at least, the ones I have won't).
My ultimate goal is to have three cable modems going in to the pfSense box. My cable provider assures me that each of the modems will give me 10 megabits, so I should have a combined 30 megabits. I realize that no one connection will be more than 10 Mbps, but that's okay for my purposes.
So I have a few questions.
First, do I really need a router? Currently I use DHCP to get an IP address from my ISP. But they do offer static IP addresses. If I get three static IPs, can I just dispense with the routers and plug the cable modems directly in to the pfSense box? If I can't do that, can you please explain why?
Assuming I can't plug the modems directly into the pfSense box, what kind of routers do you recommend? My perusal of the offerings indicates that there are two choices: "home" Cable/DSL routers that run about $30 each, or expensive thousand-plus dollar boxes that do everything but eat. I don't need fancy routing capability: as far as I can determine, all I need is something that will provide a static IP address so that I can set up the load balancing and failover.
Finally, slightly off topic … once I get the hardware or static IPs, what do I need to change in the load balancing pools in order to support failover? Do I need 6 different rules? Or can I do with just three: (WAN-OPT1, OPT1-OPT2, OPT2-WAN)?
Oh ... one other thing. Where is a good tutorial on this stuff? In particular, I'd like to understand the difference between gateway mode and router mode, and why it's best to use the routers in router mode, etc. I'm no dummy, but this stuff is completely foreign to me...