Connecting a router to a router?

[Chayan4400]

First a bit of information:

I have a pretty large home network, with a Huawei CPE E5172 as a central hub. That is a modem / router combination (I think) provided by my ISP, which wirelessly connects to their 4G data service.

Now the main problem here is that the network has extremely slow data transfer speeds (Within the network), and it's WiFi coverage is sub-par. I live in a house made of brick and cement, so that certainly doesn't help either. I need to set up a wireless backup system to a QNAPS NAS, so data transfer speeds over WiFi is my main concern.

What I am looking to do is buy a TP-Link Archer C7, and connect it via ethernet to the Huawei. I'd switch out the Huawei altogether if I could, but unfortunately most modems won't work. So what I need to know is: will this set up work? Or do I need to use an access point instead?

Here is a topology of my future network:

The purple link is my main question. All answers are greatly appreciated!

 

[JackMDS]

Using Wireless Routers (or Modem/Wireless Router) as a Switch with an Access Point - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

 

[pcm81]

Looks like your bottleneck is wifi itself. Keep in mind that wifi rated speeds are not per node. but per network, so if you have 300Mbps wifi shared by 10 devices you only have 30Mbps per device (on average). In your particular case you have a 150Mbps in Huawei CPE E5172.

More you pay for wifi router the better strength/speed you will get (600Mbps+), BUT there is a better solution if you can use wired connections.

If you are doing a lot of data transfer and 300 or 600 Mbps is just not enough for the network you can use 2 routers. Router A is connected to modem and has IP 192.168.0.1/25 (the /25 means it can assign 127 ip numbers to attached devices, say 2-128). Router B is connected to a LAN port via copper to router A (this is a GigE connection). Router B has IP number 192.168.0.128 and can assign ip numbers 192.168.0.129-254 to attached devices. NAS has to be connected to Router A, so that devices on Router B can see it. Router A and B should run on different wifi channels to avoid network congestion. Both routers can have 5GHz and 2.4GHz networks. If you can run a cable across the house it will be beneficial for wifi strength to separate wifi routers and have devices connect to closest one.

As long as your Modem is connected to a WAN port of router any traffic looking for outside IP will be directed to the modem and the internet, so your setup should work, but you will not see your modem as one of the attached devices in your router AND devices connected to your modems wifi will not see devices connected to the router. Just like in my example above, except now your modem is like router A and your router is like router B in my example.

The setup you showing above should work, but I'd suggest completely disabling modems wifi and only using modem as a modem. Also you can add wireless access points or 2nd router to help with sig strength / wifi traffic load as explained in my example above.