For a few seconds this could have been a shit post. But when you see it, its shitpost.

I can see where you’re coming from, and agree, but ISPs in Australia providing services on the National Broadband Network NBN will almost always describe this as a modem router.

It’s not uncommon, right or wrong, even Verisign USA describe a modem vs router thus: “The modem is responsible for sending and receiving signals from the ISP, while the router disperses the signal to devices on the network”

So, this doesn’t exclusively modulate and demodulate (mo-dem) an analog to digital signal in this case, and 100% it doesn’t have the physical hardware to do so, but it is nonetheless required to negotiate (‘modulate’?) the internet connection with an ISP, albeit software-defined through digital PPP Ethernet protocols.

All this is a bit off topic, but I hope the OP (or others) may better define the internet service needed, and may determine if this device may be suitable for their requirements.

I’m glad it includes openwrt support for later down the track. It’s one of the few AX devices with such support and I chose it specifically for this reason!

Meets definition of a modem/router depending on what physical connection and protocols your ISP provides.

My Ethernet WAN connects to the ISPs NTU (optical fibre network termination unit), but WAN is capable of negotiating PPPoE, PPTP or L2TP with PAP/CHAP. Can also Dual WAN, Port forward, NAT.

The documentation is a little lacking. And no ADSL/VDSL etc. but it meets reqs for some.

Maybe check out the Asus TUF-ax4200 gaming modem/router? Just bought one and it’s been an awesome upgrade to my old AC modem/router. Wifi6/AX, 4 core, good ram, 1x 2.5GbE WAN and 4x1GbE LAN. Has USB to take a mobile SIM for dual WAN/failover. ASUSs software is very good, but it is on the support list for openwrt once Asus stop supporting it.

Problems with spinning HDDs on RPI are common. Possibly even on powered hubs they may spike more than rpis 1.2A USB max allowance. You may need a specialised hat, or better to switch to solid state storage?

Suggest the typical hardware device troubleshooting. watch/tail your dmesg -w or kernel log as you add the extra drive. It’s curious that the system itself doesn’t crash, but from your description it still sounds like a power starvation concern or possibly high temperatures if this device is under heavy load.

Doesn’t meet your power requirements (only up to 850VA) but i recommend Cyberpower Bric meets the rest. I have mine connected to my Proxmox host, usb passthrough to VM running HassOS with the NUT add-on. Neat little LCD and silent unless humming on battery. Can choose if you want an audible alarm enabled or put it on mute.

APC is still very well regarded UPS brand for small business, and your specs seems like they should be achievable across many leading brands. Have you looked into latest models for your spec?

Maybe share a list of candidates you’re considering and can get opinions on those?

Agree. Best to have that dedicated hardware, and a degree in network engineering first! Hah :)

If you’re starting out, best keep internet facing home services private through a VPN, maybe ZeroTier or TailScale. Don’t advertise them publically at all.

Agree with the VPS in this case. For sure you can create public-facing services in a home server or home lab, but to do so you need:

1. Domain name hosting.
2. an Internet Service Provider who will allow you expose port 80/443 web services and on a Static IP (most do not, or paid extra on business plans). OR use a Cloud proxy like CloudFlare which your home IP can be updated through a DynDNS service and served on private ports.
3. Setup NAT/Port Forwarding on your modem to route incoming requests to internal services. First to a firewall or threat gateway like PFSense, a web proxy like Traefik/NGinX, and security harden and maintain your modem, router, network and served applications.

If you’re new to these things, Id start with something more mature for personal or family home use first. Like NextCloud, HomeAssistant or Jellyfin media server. Lots of YouTubers have covered how these can be set up as a reference.

Lemmy is still alpha, full of bugs and security vulnerabilities and needs regular hotfixes and babysitting. Permitting Joe Public into your home services is ripe for disaster unless you have the time and expertise.

Difficult to read the graph, but looks like you have less than 4GB ram. Depending what sort of OS and services are running (from above suggestions), this is likely the biggest issue.

You haven’t mentioned which services you’re running, but 4GB might be enough perhaps for a basic OS with NAS file share services. But anything heavier, like running Container services will eat that up. You’d want at least 8GB.

Note also that you may not have a dedicated graphics card? If you have integrated graphics, some ram is taken from System and shared with the GPU. If you’re just running command line, you might eke out a little more RAM for system by reducing the VRAM allocation in your BIOS. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_graphics_memory