Routers that handle VPN well

[Melontes]

I have just been informed, that if I establish an OpenVPN client with my Asus RT-AC68U router, I will experience a 60% – 70% drop in speed. I am presently getting download speeds of just over 100 Mbps. I do not care about upload speed…

I have also been told that there are “special” routers that have a math coprocessor to handle the encrypted calculations which allegedly free the router to produce more speed.

Is this true, and if so, what routers would you recommend for such purposes?

Also, are there VPN providers whose process does not infringe too heavily on the router, while at the same time, provide excellent security and privacy?

Thank you so much in advance.

 

[L&LD]

The percentage speed drop will depend on your ISP level of service, the router, the specific VPN and encryption used and what end point you're connecting to. Upload speed is just as important as download speed depending on where you are accessing the VPN from.

The only 'special' router you need is one that has enough processing power to give you the speeds you want (in your case, closer to a desktop computer than a consumer router's processing power). I don't think that 'math coprocessor' is the correct term to be searching for.

http://www.netgear.com/business/products/security/FVS336G.aspx#tab-techspecs

The above is an example of a dedicated VPN router.

No VPN provider provides security or privacy. That depends on how you use it and if you control both ends of the VPN.

How heavily the implementation of the VPN will affect performance depends on the settings you can choose for the VPN.

 

[Melontes]

Thanks. A bit expensive (of course) How would this get hooked up? FVS336G ->Asus RT-AC68U -> Modem
Or is the Asus not even used? I see the FVS336G does not do wireless...
Isn't the speed usually determined by the lowest denominator and wouldn't that be my Asus router?
Do not know what you meant by "if you control both ends of the VPN"
As you can see, I am pretty new at this stuff.

 

[L&LD]

Thanks. A bit expensive (of course) How would this get hooked up? FVS336G ->Asus RT-AC68U -> Modem
Or is the Asus not even used? I see the FVS336G does not do wireless...
Isn't the speed usually determined by the lowest denominator and wouldn't that be my Asus router?
Do not know what you meant by "if you control both ends of the VPN"
As you can see, I am pretty new at this stuff.

Expensive is relative. But it was just the first example I found.

The Asus in that setup would be used as an AP. While the ports on the Asus could be used, it would be mostly for the wireless features it offers. In this configuration, the lowest denominator is not your Asus (it is only used in a supporting role).

A VPN is a point to point connection between two networks. If you don't control the end points and the link, you have implicit trust of the link or the endpoint or both. In other words, no, you have no security nor privacy.

 

[Melontes]

Thanks again. Any opinion on the best VPN provider, or is that for another thread?

 

[L&LD]

Thanks again. Any opinion on the best VPN provider, or is that for another thread?

Best? Your own.

A router you configure on one end (preferably your home or office, with you as the sole admin), a router you configure at the other end (which nobody else has access to) and using OpenVPN to connect them together.

Anything else falls into the 'who can you trust' rabbit hole.

 

[Melontes]

Thanks, I am going to start a thread in the VPN forum..

 

[CaptainSTX]

I have just been informed, that if I establish an OpenVPN client with my Asus RT-AC68U router, I will experience a 60% – 70% drop in speed. I am presently getting download speeds of just over 100 Mbps. I do not care about upload speed…

I have also been told that there are “special” routers that have a math coprocessor to handle the encrypted calculations which allegedly free the router to produce more speed.

Is this true, and if so, what routers would you recommend for such purposes?

Also, are there VPN providers whose process does not infringe too heavily on the router, while at the same time, provide excellent security and privacy?

Thank you so much in advance.

Sabai Technology supplies routers configured with their proprietary version of Tomato. In addition, for those who want/need maximum speed they also offer a VPN Accelerator which handles the VPN encryption.

I use their setup and get 95% of my ISPs speed/bandwidth when connected using a VPN.

 

[L&LD]

Sabai Technology supplies routers configured with their proprietary version of Tomato. In addition, for those who want/need maximum speed they also offer a VPN Accelerator which handles the VPN encryption.

I use their setup and get 95% of my ISPs speed/bandwidth when connected using a VPN.

And what is your ISP speed?

 

[System Error Message]

i hope you havent gotten the router yet. I strongly advise against all routers that use the cavium octeon CPU because of stability issues and that they dont offer much in speeds. They have been known to crash or freeze quite often and provide no additional reliability over consumer routers. The only router that i know that has the most stable implementation so far is the ubiquiti edgerouter series but even that has serious bugs that you dont notice (one of their latest was a NAT leak with SSL). The VPN acceleration is part of the CPU and it is popular in many business consumer class routers. What you will want is a PPC (with encryption acceleration) based router or a TILE based as they have the raw throughputs for various VPN applications but i am not sure how well mikrotik has implemented openVPN.

The main performance issue with VPN is encryption performance. You may be better off and saving money by using x86 for it instead. So if you want reliable i suggest you use either mikrotik (ppc with hardware encrption or tile based) or x86. Otherwise these vpn business routers arent going to give you any more advantage over an asus router for example but with 3rd party firmware like tomato, openwrt, rmerlin firmware (has good openVPN implementation), than what matters is for the hardware to be reliable and has the features you want.

 

[CaptainSTX]

My ISP speed is 75/12. With Comcast I often get 80+ down. Running the VPN connected to servers 1000+ miles distant I usually get 75 +.

Originally purchased the setup when I was living outside USA and wanted to stream video with a 5 Mbps connection.

Router and accelerator very stable. Go for months without rebooting. I have 20 Ethernet devices and 10 Wifi devices connected. The router is an ASUS N66 with the accelerator.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[coxhaus]

Has anybody setup a VPN between 2 Cisco RV320 routers? I have one and I am thinking about buying one for my daughters new house since I am setting up the network. I guess I can give her mine and setup pfsense or Untangle for my router. I only need IPsec for VPN.