schaps
Premium
join:2004-01-15
Saint Paul, MN
| reply to schaps
Re: Best Dual Wan Router
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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Anav
Sarcastic Llama? Naw, Just Acerbic
Premium
join:2001-07-16
Dartmouth, NS
| reply to schaps
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
1 edit | reply to Huligan
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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phoneboy3
@telus.net | reply to Huligan
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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Freezone
join:2000-09-29
Southfield, MI
| reply to twizlar
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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twizlar
I dont think so.
Premium
join:2003-12-24
Brantford, ON | reply to Huligan
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
| reply to Anav
said by Anav :I have heard of 30Fios, is 60 on the horizon?? 2x 30 mbit would yeild 60 and not too many lowend routers could handle that. in the next couple of years it is not unreasonable to believe that 15-30 mbit connections will be much more common and that many of these dualwan routers will make for very nice paper wieghts and door stops. |
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insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN
| reply to Bradenton
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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stevevogelnu
join:2005-03-23
Lees Summit, MO
| reply to pende_tim
Thanks Guys! I see a fan club is developing.
We're working on building up DrayTek telephone tech support and a dealer network in the USA. We're even planning an affiliate marketing program. Go to »www.draytek.us for more details.
And yes, DrayTek has a large variety of products at various performance levels, including 10/100/1000 Mbit performance. The price is generally about half or even a quarter of the price of the competition. |
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pende_tim
Premium
join:2004-01-04
Andover, NJ
 ·ProLog
 ·ViaTalk
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to Anav
I am in the same boat as broccoli, the fastest connection offered ( at a consumer level price ) is from PTD cable. They max at 10 Mbit/sec. DSL is 3.0 Mbit from Verizon. While Verizon has a statewide franchise for FIOS, it is doubtful we will see it in Warren county in my lifetime. So the 30Mbit speed, even if it is a combined 2 way number is not a limitation for me.
My son (who is the chief network engineer for a telco in upper NY state -- proud father speaking here  ) was amazed at what this thing did. He did a quick pricing of equivalent Cisco cards - power supply, rack, WAN /LAN cards, VoIP card, wireless card and processor- to match all the features and it came in well over $5,000 even at the Telco's discount. Then one would have to spend a couple of hours stitching it all together and configuring it with MPLS.
While the two are different class devices, the value for money is excellent.
I am not meaning to sound like a fan-boy here, just letting people know what is available and relating my experience with a relatively unknown piece of gear.
Tim
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The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. |
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Anav
Sarcastic Llama? Naw, Just Acerbic
Premium
join:2001-07-16
Dartmouth, NS | reply to broccoli
Concur, one thing to watch for is the stated specs are often the two way accumulation throughput not the one way transfer throughput. (90 becomes 45 and 30 becomes 15 for example). |
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broccoli
join:2007-11-29
Portland, OR
| reply to Freezone
said by Freezone :I looked at the router you linked to and i do not see mention of through-put. In a world with 60 mbs fios this will become more and more important. At $250 I am willing to bet it is not able to handle a total throughput of over 20 mbs. So someone with fios or connections with high speeds will actually slow down. To that i say "Yuck." The 2910 series maxes out at around 30 Mbit/s.
The new 2930 series can supposedly handle up to 90 MBit/s.
Through-put is one huge advantage of software routers.
Yes, but...
Before I got my 2910, I was looking at SmoothWall, after Linksys, D-Link, Buffalo, Netgear, and US Robotics products repeatedly disappointed me. I was hoping to turn an old laptop into a router, but what I discovered was it was a pain to set up, even if you have the time and energy to work on it. Hardware compatibility was poor (no native USB support, but I wanted to use USB NICs and a CardBus USB card). And no VPN functionality in the free version (for that you need to pay for licenses), and tuning it to work well is no easy task (not to mention it's easy to configure it incorrectly and compromise your network's security).
Since my telco has no plans for fiber, it would probably be another decade before my net connection outruns my router's. The router's speed is the least of my concerns at this time (well, as long as it's faster than the POS FVS114). |
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Anav
Sarcastic Llama? Naw, Just Acerbic
Premium
join:2001-07-16
Dartmouth, NS | reply to Freezone
I have heard of 30Fios, is 60 on the horizon?? |
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Freezone
join:2000-09-29
Southfield, MI
| reply to pende_tim
I looked at the router you linked to and i do not see mention of through-put. In a world with 60 mbs fios this will become more and more important. At $250 I am willing to bet it is not able to handle a total throughput of over 20 mbs. So someone with fios or connections with high speeds will actually slow down. To that i say "Yuck."
Through-put is one huge advantage of software routers. |
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pende_tim
Premium
join:2004-01-04
Andover, NJ
·ProLog
·ViaTalk
·Verizon Online DSL
2 edits | reply to Huligan
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.
--
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. |
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mozerd
Light Will Pierce The Darkness
Premium,MVM
join:2004-04-23
Nepean, ON
1 edit | reply to jinjimbob
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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jinjimbob
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
1 edit | reply to Huligan
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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Freezone
join:2000-09-29
Southfield, MI
| reply to daveinpoway
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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daveinpoway
Premium
join:2006-07-03
Poway, CA | reply to fkd6tg
Using a PC as a router can involve issues such as size, power consumption and cooling fan noise. |
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fkd6tg
@videotron.ca
 from:
Cabal
| reply to Huligan
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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