Hello all, as the title says I'm looking for some advice / equipment recommendations or options. Little bit of a read to give some background and future information to hopefully get a good conversation going and learn some things along the way.
Me Aspiring networker. I currently work for an ISP as a field tech and have been for a while. Currently in the beginning stages of course work for a CCNA. Meaning I'm learning and not tech illiterate but there is a lot I don't know and trying to catch up.
The Equpment Currently I do not have a ton for my "homelab". 1 daily driver rig that is my bread and butter (decently high end), a middle of the road media server build that serves my home and about 5 others outside my network, but never at the same time (basically a mini ATX build with older but still relevant parts), and 21 other "various" devices from smart plugs to laptops). The rig, the server and my streamer are all hardwired, everything else is wireless. All connected via an Amplifi Gamers Edition router (ISP supplied modem, perfect working order, all new coax and signal levels to it are wonderful and no SNR issues). Subscribed speed is currently 600/20 Mb/s. My home is approximately 1900 sq ft including a partially finished basement. This is where the main portion of the router is at, with the rig and server. Both mesh points are upstairs.
The Problem I've come to the conclusion that my router cannot handle the traffic, and even with all the devices, I never come close to the top end of my subscribed speeds, even when the server is downloading as I have limiters in place. Random times even when the server is off, such as a few min ago, everything seemed to grind to a halt. Even my Sonos stopped playing music while trying to DL a file via mozilla at 340 kb/s.
The Plea for Help My cry for help is asking for a solution that will cover my entire home, but allow for me to continue and build on it as my homelab grows. My next wish is to build a firewall (maybe with opensense or PFsense). I would LIKE to have 6E availability but not a requirement. I'm not opposed to building something as all I have, I built. I do wish to start self hosting more and more as my learning journey continues and I attempt to automate my home as well.
Pretty much any suggestion is welcome and if there are any questions, please ask as well.
If a simple link for guidance is all that is necessary to guide me down a path, I will take it. I do not need to be spoon fed.
I doubt it is getting fully saturated, not to say it's not possible though. I can't wait for our area to get High Split for symmetrical speeds. At the end of the day even if the router isn't my issue, and I'm being saturated, I would like to move myself in a more secure and useable direction. Such as for home automation, additional servers and firewalls, and potentially getting into cyber security.
Thank you for your time as well. Reddit side was much less responsive than here. Judgy almost.