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DOCTOR
THIS MONTH THE DOCTOR TACKLES...
> Synology Me
> Ubuntu shar
> Laptop drive failure
Synology Mesh setup
I’m a long-time user of a Synology RT2600ac router, and my biggest frustration has always been extending my Wi-Fi network to cover the whole house. I've experimented with extenders and a Powerline network with Wi-Fi, but having to prompt my devices to move from one network to another feels like a compromise.
Mesh networks would fix this problem, so you can imagine how excited I was to discover my RT2600ac could combine with other Synology routers to deliver such a solution. What do I need for such a setup—can I keep the cost to under $150, for example? And how do I go about configuring a Synology mesh network?
—Kevin Tuma
THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: You can create a simple two-device mesh network by combining your RT2600ac with either Synology’s new flagship Wi-Fi router (RT6600ax, $301 newegg.com) or its budget WiFi 5 router (MR2200ac, $120 amazon.com). This should be sufficient to boost the signal to one dead spot in your home. You can then add extra MR2200ac routers as additional satellites should the need arise.
All of Synology’s current router lineup support mesh.
© SYNOLOGY
If you chose the more expensive RT6600ax model, that would be the centerpiece of your new mesh network, and you’d need to reconfigure your RT2600ac as a satellite. However, by choosing the MR2200ac model to suit your budget, that becomes the satellite to your RT2600ac, which would remain as your primary router.
The key requirement for deploying the older RT2600ac and MR2200ac routers in a mesh environment is that they’re both running the same version of SRM—1.2.5 or the latest version of Synology’s firmware (SRM 1.3.1). Were you to pair either router with the RT6600ax, you’d need to upgrade them to SRM 1.3.1. There are other good reasons for upgrading to SRM 1.3.1 too, not least its support for VLANs, allowing you to segment network devices into separate, isolated networks for security reasons.