Huligan
@mpowercom.net
| Best Dual Wan Router I have a small business with 15 PC's. I also have 2 modems coming in from Comcast. I currently have 2 separate networks within one roof.
I want to combine them with a dual wan port router but can't figure out what to use!
Every single one I looked at has bad reviews!
What can you recommend? Here's what i saw:
LINKSYS RV042
XINCOM XC-DPG502
EDIMAX BR-624
D-Link DI-LB604 | |
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Anav
Sarcastic Llama? Naw, Just Acerbic
Premium
join:2001-07-16
Dartmouth, NS | Re: Best Dual Wan Router Do you have an option for using a separate provider??
In other words, there is no redundancy with the same ISP.
If you need more throughput simply pay for me thru the single connection. | |
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Huligan
@mpowercom.net
| Anav,
I don't need 2 ISP's. My problem is the download speeds.
We move allot of data down and I need 2 just for speed.
Comcast has been down once in the last 2 years, so it's not a problem.
I need a Router with DHCP and no problems. It's only use will be to combine the 2 modems. | |
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Anav
Sarcastic Llama? Naw, Just Acerbic
Premium
join:2001-07-16
Dartmouth, NS | Re: Best Dual Wan Router Well thats what I am saying, simply increase the speed throughput of a single pipe?? Does comcast or a diff internet provider in your area have diff classes of business speed/throughput they sell?? | |
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Huligan
@mpowercom.net | We have the highest tier Comcast offers.
I need advise on the best dual Wan Router. | |
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| fox7
join:2001-02-12
Culver City, CA | Re: Best Dual Wan Router A dual WAN Router is NOT going to add those 2 pipes into 1 pipe. It is for fail over. If one connection goes down the other one will automatically pick up the job.
fox7 | |
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Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
Premium,MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI
 ·Site5.com
 ·AT&T Midwest
 ·Comcast
| Re: Best Dual Wan Router said by fox7  :A dual WAN Router is NOT going to add those 2 pipes into 1 pipe. It is for fail over. If one connection goes down the other one will automatically pick up the job. fox7 I have a dual wan router and it is great for load balancing the connections. If one connection is throttled, it routes the other downloads to the other connection. Same goes for upload bandwidth.
I have a RV082 which works great. I would highly recommend that to be honest. However, any router you buy at that price is going to be pretty good as long as it is a brand name. | |
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Huligan
@mpowercom.net
| I don't need to have 1 pipe.
I need to combine 2 Modems to be on the same network.
For this I need a 2 Wan port Router. the way I'm going to set it up will be Person A will be on Modem 1 and Person B will be on Modem 2 for load balancing.
Currently we have 2 separate networks and resources can't be shared from one to another.
I think I'm going with XinCom XC-DPG502 | |
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jinjimbob
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
1 edit | Re: Best Dual Wan Router Xincom told me that their dual wan router will work with the same ISP subnet. I haven't heard back from Zyxel yet.
The Xincom also looks to work well with secure connections, the other routers require configurations.
I have read that the Linksys routers need a different subnet for each isp, so it wouldn't work in your case using the same ISP for both. The Dlink hasn't got good reviews for stability. | |
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Leathal
Premium
join:2002-02-09
Toronto, ON
| You are missing the point of what Anav is getting across, what happens if Comcast blow a router that connects them to their upstream and their redundant system can't handle the extra load are you really safe? It's always best practice when you are going for a dual WAN setup no matter what it's for to use two different ISP's that way if one has technically problems your second one can pickup the load.
Putting eggs all in one basket because you haven't had any problems in the past 2 years is simply mental! 
As for dual WAN I would suggest the Xincom, Linksys and Dlink, and I am not sure about the Edimax do not lock the sessions into their WAN ports when you are network load balancing which can be a serious issue when it comes to accessing sites that use HTTPS (SSL Certs) as almost all of the them don't allow you two come in two separate IP addresses.
Leathal | |
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schaps
Premium
join:2004-01-15
Saint Paul, MN
1 edit | said by Huligan :
I don't need to have 1 pipe.
I need to combine 2 Modems to be on the same network.
For this I need a 2 Wan port Router. the way I'm going to set it up will be Person A will be on Modem 1 and Person B will be on Modem 2 for load balancing.
Currently we have 2 separate networks and resources can't be shared from one to another.
I think I'm going with XinCom XC-DPG502
You bowed out of this discussion rather early and never seemed to get a good answer to your question. I wonder if you got the XinCom and how it works for you. If I understand your situation, I don't know why you'd need a dual WAN router, though. It appears you just wanted a way to combine networks and have users manually load-balanced, that is, manually assigned different gateway addresses to achieve load balance. For that, you don't need a router, the Comcast business cable modems can be assigned IPs on your network's subnet, and that would work fine. However, it is advisable to get a multi-wan router so that you can then have one pipe to run through a firewall to separate your internal network from the wild wild web.
In any case, this thread contributed to my own evaluation process for upgrading my school's internet (currently have 2 T1s, will be dropping one), and I just added two Comcast business cable modems and am waiting for my new Peplink Balance 380 enterprise multi-wan load-balancing router (»www.peplink.com/products/balance-380 ). Lots of research contributed to that decision, and though that particular router is $2000, my boss, the president and principal of the school would have signed off on a $6,000 Cisco router and a three year commitment to three new T1s that our ISP proposed. I didn't think that 4.5 Mb/s was going to address the bandwidth needs of the YouTube generation, so I recommended a different direction.
So we're keeping one T1 as our lifeline and they just installed the business class Comcast modems. We're paying for 8 Mb/s download and 1 Mb/s upload, but multiple tests over multiple days on speedtest.net showed *20* to *22* Mb/s download on each one every time. In our local area, most cable modems are residential, so they don't have much activity during the day, when we need the bandwidth.
A three year comparison of going the Cisco with multiple T1 route vs. going this way and replacing the T1 with DSL modem when the T1 contract runs out in 19 months, the cost savings was $40,000 over three years. I'd say that's worth the risk...
So I'll report back when I get the Peplink installed. Huligan, if you're still around, let us know how the XinCom worked out for you.
[edited- link to Peplink Balance 380 fixed] | |
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Anav
Sarcastic Llama? Naw, Just Acerbic
Premium
join:2001-07-16
Dartmouth, NS
| Re: Best Dual Wan Router Nice looking unit, I would have probably brought up the USG300 ($1500ish )or possibly USG 1000 ($2300ish) for discussion.
»zyxel.com/web/product_family_det···79CE2C44 | |
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schaps
Premium
join:2004-01-15
Saint Paul, MN
| The Peplink is awesome! The drop-in mode installation means you don't have to change any settings on the firewall. I added the two Comcast business class cable lines to our existing T1, and it's doing load sharing based on ratios I assign, and it's amazingly fast.
The biggest problem I had was figuring out how to configure the SMC8014 cable modems/routers that Comcast uses for Business Class. They are actually router/switches set to distribute DHCP, but it turns out that if you assign the ports of the Peplink to the Comcast-assigned static IP, the SMC goes into regular bridge mode automagically.
I'm still getting speeds almost 20 Mb/s down 2.5 Mb/s up during the school day on each one, and if they conk out, we still have that old reliable expensive T1 that the router will failover to. At least until that T1 contract is up, that is. Then I'll probably get a DSL line. The Comcast modems have had no outages in the two weeks since they were installed.
You naysayers can spout "no SLA" all you want. The fact is, many businesses and schools are not as dependent on the internet as others are. The $40k our school will save over the next three years (vs. the 3 T1s our provider proposed and the principal signed off on before I found this other direction) will be put to good use in other areas of the school. And this is just freaking fast downloads. Plus, the ping times to the DNS servers are even faster through the cable modems than our T1.
That's my report. Your mileage may vary.
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"The most effective firewall has no windows or gates" | |
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jinjimbob
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
| Re: Best Dual Wan Router Looks like that Hotbrick LB-2 is actually a XinCom XC-DPG502. | |
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| Freezone
join:2000-09-29
Southfield, MI
| Re: Best Dual Wan Router Dual wan routers will add total bandwidth to your organization.
You do not need a dual wan router in order to combine the 2 networks. BUt if you want dhcp then it is suggested.
You get what you pay for in dual wan router land. The cheap ones suck.
If you wee willing to give up dhcp then all you would have to do is add the gateways to each cable modem to all of you pcs. Windows will handle failover. This is provided that the cable modem will allow you to change its ip.
Also if you are looking for a software solution to try while you look for a hardware router, let me suggest pfsense running in a vmware session.
Even though your cable is rarely down there are times when the backbone goes down and sites get caught in a black hole and become unreachable. 2 providers helps insure against this. Even maintenance can be nerve racking. | |
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| daveinpoway
Premium
join:2006-07-03
Poway, CA
| Have you considered the Netgear FVX538? In the past, this model didn't have the best reputation, due to less-than-perfect firmware, but the current firmware seems to be pretty good. Like the Zywall 35, this costs around $500, but cheap routers just don't do a good job (I learned that earlier this year, when I tried several models before deciding to buy the 538). You also get a lifetime guaranty. | |
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| | ple
join:2002-11-09
New York, NY | Re: Best Dual Wan Router check out www.peplink.com
supports failover and combining bandwidth/load balancing | |
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dervari
join:2000-01-17
Atlanta, GA
clubs: | If you really want a more commercial oriented solution then SOHO/Consumer, take a look at some of the Radware boxes. | |
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Mark
Premium
join:2001-11-15
Mesa, AZ | I would use three NICs in a Linux box and a 16 port gigE switch. | |
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SterlingJ85
Obama 2008
join:2000-11-19
Millville, NJ
 ·PHONE POWER
| I have had HotBrick's in the past, they don't work that great.
I moved over the PePLink devices, now on an enterprise Balance model. Have had great success, and the device is AWESOME. Perfect stability, and fails-over and balances load very well.
More expensive, but well worth it! | |
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| Bradenton
join:2006-11-23
York, ON
| Re: Best Dual Wan Router I've purchased a new HotBrick LB-2 and a HotBrick VPN1400/2 from Gabby in Canada and the most recent firmware works very, very well. It seems that most or all of the remaining bugs have been worked out. Load-balancing (at least at the session level) works well, the dynamic DNS now works well, and the IPSec VPN works like a charm. Gabby was very helpful in the original set up. See »www.redundantinternet.com | |
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insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN
| Re: Best Dual Wan Router said by Bradenton :I've purchased a new HotBrick LB-2 and a HotBrick VPN1400/2 from Gabby in Canada and the most recent firmware works very, very well. It seems that most or all of the remaining bugs have been worked out. Load-balancing (at least at the session level) works well, the dynamic DNS now works well, and the IPSec VPN works like a charm. Gabby was very helpful in the original set up. See » www.redundantinternet.com I am using the most recent firmware on an LB-2. It finally fixed the ARP problems, but now dhcp is broken. It works on some computers, but not others. And even if you initially get an address to work via DHCP, once the address expires and your computer tries to get another one it will fail. It has been over 2 years and this hotbrick still sucks. It's sad when a company releases an update to fix one problem and creates another. | |
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insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN
| I reviewed every dual wan I could find on the internet in my internship over the summer. Based on online reviews and features, a draytek vigor2910 seemed like a really good router. »www.draytek.com/product/Dual_Wan···2910.php
Definitely do not go with a hotbrick(My fraternity used one and after 3 years it still doesn't handle arp correctly), and from what I read xincom had next to no customer support. Other than the draytek I think the d-link and the linksys were the other two I felt would have been decent and also had acceptable customer support, but the linksys was hit or miss on hardware problems. | |
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insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN | Re: Best Dual Wan Router I was on the tail end of an internship, so I was only able to play with it for a week. In my limited testing, I found no issues. Load balancing and fail-over seemed to work well. | |
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pende_tim
Premium
join:2004-01-04
Andover, NJ | Re: Best Dual Wan Router Did fail-back also work well? | |
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jinjimbob
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13 | I couldn't find any reviews about the Draytek 2910, some on usenet liked their products though. | |
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| Freezone
join:2000-09-29
Southfield, MI
| Re: Best Dual Wan Router Not as elegant a solution as true load balancing which will allow for one machine to use all available bandwidth. Also failover is easy to add to that setup by simply adding the second gateways with a higher metric. To get around dns issues just use opendns.com | |
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jinjimbob
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
3 edits | Just got the Zyxel Zywall 35. I'm using it with two Qwest DSL lines at the moment, two Actiontec GT701R modems, both at 1.5Mbps/896Kbps speeds. Using the DSL modems in the transparent bridged mode, so the Zywall is doing the PPPoE.
I will be changing one of the Qwest lines to another ISP soon for failover.
Regular web pages and ftp works very well, when having the load balance in round robin weighted mode, haven't fully understood the modes yet. To test the speed, I downloaded two large files from different sites, almost get 3Mbps. Bit torrent works very well both up and down.
I have to set some rules so secure banking and vpn client software works.
The only downfalls of this router are that there are not 'sticky' port settings like in the Xincom, have to force a tcp/ip port connection onto a specific WAN port, although it will failover to the other WAN port if needed.
Having the sticky/persistent secure ports (or any ports) would make this router perfect.
In the manual it states that each of the two ISPs must be on a different subnet, I can't verify this, as both my qwest isps are already on different nets. It is easy to get by this though with dsl, by setting one of the modems to do the PPPoE and by port forwarding, a hassle but it will work.
The graphing capabilities or 'ok', just not as nice the graphs in the WRT54G tomato firmware.
I have contacted Zyxel support via their website and sent a few questions, have yet to even get any response. Maybe the phone is all they respond to. I would expect more from them.
The firmware listed on the website is very out of date for the Zywall 35, I think the Zywall 35 UTM uses the same firmware, but I'm not sure, their website is messed up in the download area.
Hope this helps someone, as this Dual WAN router is very good, and it looks like the other cheaper ones out there aren't as reliable. | |
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Anav
Sarcastic Llama? Naw, Just Acerbic
Premium
join:2001-07-16
Dartmouth, NS
| Re: Best Dual Wan Router There is really only one firmware stream to use and that is the ZyWALL UTM firmare, which is the only one that is kept current. Ignore the older ones.
Phone support is usually better yes!
As far as "sticky", use Policy routes to delineate specific users or services or combo that you want to ensure uses the wan port of your choosing!
There is lots more you can do with "graphing" with other utilities!.
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Ain't nuthin but the blues! "Albert Collins".
Leave your troubles at the door! "Pepe Peregil" De Sevilla. Just Don't Wifi without WPA, "Yul Brenner"
LlamaWorks Equipment | |
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jinjimbob
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
1 edit | Re: Best Dual Wan Router Looks like the latest firmware fixed the same subnet problem for both WAN isps.
This is a very good router! | |
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fkd6tg
@videotron.ca
 from:
Cabal
| The guy asked for the best dual-wan router not your opinions on his setup... Don't waste your money on fancy pos dual-wan routers. Find a unused computer with 4 nics and away you go. »www.pfsense.com I run 4 wan on this solution and it never failed me. It is constantly updated, free and great support forum. Pfsense in itself is probably more advanced than any other router anyway. Did I told you it was FREE? | |
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| daveinpoway
Premium
join:2006-07-03
Poway, CA | Re: Best Dual Wan Router Using a PC as a router can involve issues such as size, power consumption and cooling fan noise. | |
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| | Freezone
join:2000-09-29
Southfield, MI
| Re: Best Dual Wan Router said by daveinpoway :Using a PC as a router can involve issues such as size, power consumption and cooling fan noise. I agree that is why i chose to do a vmware install. It is not like many of use are using the full power of our quad and dual core machines anyway.
Also with a vmware install the machine can be used for other things besides just running it as a router.
Pfsense is not for everyone. There is a learning curve that a novice may find hard to overcome. It is no where near as simple as many of the dual wan router solutions out there. But it is worth a try before you drop $500+ for a good multiwan router.
One huge issue that you will need to watch when buying a router is through-put. The lower end routers will not be able to handle a fios connection with a highspeed cable combined. So you may buy a router that works for you today only to find that it has no future. A pfsense setup should be able to handle the stress of the higher connections that the future may bring. | |
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jinjimbob
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
1 edit | As a follow up to my Zywall 35 experience, tried to contact tech support 3 times. I'm taking a loss on returning this router, as it fails with simultaneous PPPoE connections. The WAN1 port hangs every day.
Its a shame when a $50 Linksys router can run for months with PPPoE, but a $500+ router can not run for 12 hours. I expected more. | |
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mozerd
Light Will Pierce The Darkness
Premium,MVM
join:2004-04-23
Nepean, ON
1 edit | Re: Best Dual Wan Router said by jinjimbob :tried to contact tech support 3 times. How did you try and contact tech support? By phone or email? Best way is by phone and if you're in North America the correct phone number for tech support is
800-255-4101 x510
--
David Mozer
IT-Expert on Call
Information Technology for Home and Business | |
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pende_tim
Premium
join:2004-01-04
Andover, NJ
·ProLog
·ViaTalk
·Verizon Online DSL
2 edits | I recently purchased a Dual WAN Draytek Vigor 2910VG router and have to say it is a very impressive unit. So far it has been stable and works as advertised.
It cost me about $250 from VoIP supply and was in stock. Link to spec sheet: »www.draytek.com/product/Dual_Wan···10VG.php
Setup went well but it is not for the N00B. The user manual could stand some work and the English is a little rough. It took a few hours to get all the features working.
The unit does dual wan with autoload balance based on connection speeds and % used or a use on demand or it can be set to assign specific lan IP addresses to specific WAN ports.
A really nice feature is that there is a USB port that can support a printer or a 3G USB dongle. In the 3 G mode the USB takes the place of WAN2 and WAN2 becomes a LAN1 port. (Draytek is working on software that will enable the USB port to support a USB HDD for attached storage.)
Port forwarding, DMZ etc all work well.
QoS can be set up based on source IP, Destination IP, destination Port etc. and rules can be applied that reserve a percentage of available bandwidth to user defined rules.
DynDns works and will reassign the DNS registration if the preferred WAN port goes down.
VPN works flawlessly. It supports IPsec and and many other methods.
There is a configurable Firewall .
Wireless logins can be set with radius, wep or wpa and bandwidth can be set by connection... if you want to set up a pay access point this has some possibilities.
Bandwidth limits can be set by time of day and through a bunch of rules ( IP addresses, Ports, etc ) It support
The only weakness I have found is in the VoIP section. The VoIP works well ( I had it set up to work on ViaTAlk ) with the exception of fail over. If you tell it to use WAN2 for VoIP, It will not fail over to WAN1. There is an Auto setting.
Due to the sometimes cryptic documentation I have had to use E-mail support to get a few questions answered. The responses have been very good, but the support is in the Far East, so there is a 12-14 hour time shift, but if I sent a question Monday, the response was in my in box Tuesday AM.
If you look on line at the draytek.com website and the support pages, there is a link to the users guide. This will give you a better idea of the router's capabilities.
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The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. | |
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twizlar
I dont think so.
Premium
join:2003-12-24
Brantford, ON | Been using pfsense for this for awhile, works awesome. Throughput isn't an issue either, with three gigabit network cards.
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Intel Q6600 | 8800GTX | Ipods suck | |
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| Freezone
join:2000-09-29
Southfield, MI
| Re: Best Dual Wan Router said by twizlar :Been using pfsense for this for awhile, works awesome. Throughput isn't an issue either, with three gigabit network cards. I am sure it is more a factor of the cpu. Which on most fairly modern comps is much faster than most low end routers. | |
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phoneboy3
@telus.net | Just get a Soekris 5501, 256MB CF, and install PFSense. Your done. Probably half the cost and twice the performance of any other "commercial" grade product out there and it just works. | |
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