piHole cripples internet speed

No, it will not.

You should not. Any DNS server available to clients is liable to be used at any time, resulting in DNS traffic bypassing Pi-hole.

One way to increase reliability (if you have problems keeping your Pi-hole running) is to add a second instance of Pi-hole on a different device or on a device that is already running 24/7 (a NAS, for example).

Then you would enter the IP's for each Pi-hole in the DHCP settings on your router. If either Pi-hole fails, the other continues serving the entire network with no network downtime.

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