Upgrading FVS336GV2 to ?

[markg]

my FVS336GV2 works fine, but its slow (about 30mbs) and I now have a 105mbs connection, so I need something faster.

Netgear just announced a major upgrade with a FVS336G-300, and it seems like it might be fast enough.

Any comments on this upgrade? something else I should be looking for?

this is for a very small office, and one thing I absolutely need (which eliminates most all of the home versions I have looked at in the past) is that I can change settings on the router without stopping the router traffic. Maybe that has changed?

anyway, I don't need wireless (have that handled with separate waps), and some of the utm version routers just seem to be an unnecessary expense for us. But im open to look at anything

thanks

 

[Trip]

If you do your research in the segment, I think you'll find the general consensus is that Netgear's ProSafe stuff is ok for switching, but somewhat lackluster for routing/vpn. Take that as you will, but for $250-300, I think you can get way more bang for your buck elsewhere. If you don't to focus so much on UTM, there's always the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter series. Or if you want more plug-n-play multi-wan, Peplink for hard-line, CradlePoint for 3G/4G. That said, there are perfectly legit UTM devices from SonicWall, Fortinet, Cyberoam, Zyxel, etc. that don't actually need active UTM licenses in order to function perfectly fine as full-functional routers with basic firewalling and intrusion prevention. Or even a Netgate APU2 -- a pFsense device that's completely modular with plugins, so it can run as barebones or as feature-heavy as you want.

Point being, there are so many options that trounce the ProSafe gear in the above-mentioned categories, I can't see why people buy the stuff, other than on blind assumption that any product in the line is just as good as the other stuff. But like I said, I think if you do your research you'll see that's not quite the case.

 

[markg]

Thanks for the feedback.

I looked at all those options, and except for the ubiquiti, they are all about 2x the price of the netgear, so I rejected them. The ERPoe-5 is in the same price ballpark.

Re Ubiquiti; on amazon etc. they seem to have consistent reviews; great if you are an IT network person, less so if you aren't due to their complexity.
The one thing they DONT have is a user interface simulator, which would show me, quickly, if I was getting in over my head.

I would like the flexibility ubiquiti offers, but not sure how much of a time sink it would be to set up.

 

[Trip]

Hi mark. No problem. I guess I should have asked if you're actually using the 2nd WAN port... if you're not and don't plan to, then there are single WAN options from those I mentioned above that are right around the same price. On the edgerouters, I don't know of any emulator sites; that said, complete configuration from a GUI hasn't really been possible until the recent 1.6 release with its full config "tree", but the new version is not without its rough edges and I'd still say those units are more on technical side of things. Probably best to stay away if you're looking for something more (or completely) plug-n-play.

Another option I forgot to mention would be the Cisco RV325. Many RVs don't review much better than the prosafe stuff, but the 325 seems to be reviewing well and is not that far off in price. You *can* see an emulator for it here.

 

[markg]

Thanks

I played with the cisco simulator; its missing some things from the gui that I need, so it would force me to use the console to program them up.

ill take another look at the ubiquity, but im thinking to just get this thing up and running, netgear might be the best/easiest; should be fast enough, and although not the best by far, easy to get done what I really need to do for a relatively good price.

 

[Trip]

Understood on the RV series. One way to make an edgerouter setup a bit less daunting is to download a template config file from the support section or forums, then upload that file and modify only the parts you need to.

Regardless of what you choose, do come back and let us know how it works out. I for one would welcome more positive feedback on the prosafe routers, as just going on outward appearance they have a nice build to them, it's just that they often don't review all that well, so it would be nice to see something contrary for a change.

 

[markg]

Regardless of what you choose, do come back and let us know how it works out. I for one would welcome more positive feedback on the prosafe routers, as just going on outward appearance they have a nice build to them, it's just that they often don't review all that well, so it would be nice to see something contrary for a change.

I got the netgear fvs336gv3

copied the rules over (manually so as to avoid any issues in compatibility between the configurations of v2 and v3 models), and it fired up reasonably well.

it is much faster than the old model; I could only get 38mb wan/lan with the v2, but with this new v3 I believe I am saturating the 105mb connection at 125mb (speed boost most likely), so im not sure how much headroom I have.

I did try and enable a measuring tool in the firmware, something that made the old router unusable, and it still has a very bad effect, reducing speed from 125 to about 38mb. fortunately not a function I need, but it would have been nice to have to play around with.

other than that, the only thing im having trouble with is setting up ipv6, which on the old box was unusable since it ground the speed even lower. the box is capable, but I don't really have a clue of how to do this properly, and I cant even find a user manual for this model or firmware release! it is enabled however, so all my speed tests include the processor enabled for ipv6 (with no impact in speed).

I plan on running this for the next week or so. If I have any problems, ill order the ubiquity poe-5 and give that a try, then send one of them back.

Rating:
ease of use *****
wan/lan speed *****
other functions *** due to processor running out of cycles
ipv6 is included but not sure how to rate it yet

 

[Trip]

Good stuff. Thanks for the info. Good decision to try and alternative. Makes for good troubleshooting, if nothing else. I have a feeling the poe-5 will blow the netgear out of the water, but I'll keep my predictions reigned in until you report back.

 

[markg]

my final post on this;

this was a tough decision. the netgear did everything I wanted, and set up easily. the ubiquity was much more flexible etc. but I didn't really need most of that flexibility.
I was going to send the ubiquity back, but then had a problem with the netgear; one of the forwarding rules I had previously set up on the v2 didn't work properly on the v3. turns out DNS/UDP doesn't forward properly if part of a group. it works fine outside of a group however.
netgears response was that this was a issue in a prior version of firmware for the v2 - maybe it snuck into this one. level 2 support offered to look at my config etc. at their lab.

as helpful as they were, I was done. it reminded me of how long it takes to get most companys to fix stuff in firmware, and I sent it back.

was it the right decision? who knows. it took me about an hour of searching to just rename a dhcp server, because what was originally posted by ubiquity in their forums was WRONG. they fixed it when I pointed it out, but still - it shows the shape of their firmware. you called it 'rough'. I would call it closer to alpha for normal people, maybe final beta for experienced networking people.

but most of the functions other than initial set up require you do work with the cli, and I didn't find much documentation that helped an inexperienced networking wannabe (me).

I did however figure they would improve, and based on that I kept it.

6 months from now we will know if I made the right decision. 6 months after that the warranty expires, whereas the netgear is lifetime. and they DID honor it on my v1 after about 5 years, so that's worth something.

But....I am afraid the real reason I kept it was like most everything else I do - looking for something else to learn about. and this will certainly teach me about networking, good or bad. I just wish I had a copy of the cisco networking simulator software package to learn on vs trial and error on this.

mark