One straightforward but hard-to-answer question on dual-WAN routers

[J.P.]

I am trying to determine the failover speed of some dual-WAN routers prior to purchase. (Assuming you have two broadband connections, it's the length of time between losing your main connection and picking up on your secondary connection; i.e., the length of time without an Internet connection.) This has been difficult.

What I have so far:

Cisco RV042: average = 45 seconds, but fallback (reconnection to the main connection when available) is manual, source = Website review. Called Cisco, they didn't know but they would have someone get back with me.

Netgear FVS124GL: nearly 3 minutes, source = Web poster

Falcon failover router: 7 seconds for "most," source = tradingcomputers.com

Hotbrick: someone said this is difficult to setup so I didn't bother looking into it.

Xincom: sent an e-mail to info@xincom.com which immediately got a Mail Delivery Failed return. Called them at 10 a.m. Pacific time and the phone just rang and rang. Also, there was a post that the User's Manual was written by someone whose first language is not English.

I am particularly interested in the Cisco RV042. I believe its failover may be much shorter than 45 seconds; if someone could confirm it would be appreciated.

And if you have a dual-WAN router of any make, it would be quite helpful if you would post your failover speed.

 

[dandxg]

I am no longer much interested in dual wan, but Xincom and Hotbrick are the same with different packaging.

I would look at Peplink too, looks much more professional than many others http://www.peplink.com/balance/benefits/

 

[J.P.]

Quote from dandxg:

I am no longer much interested in dual wan, but Xincom and Hotbrick are the same with different packaging.

I would look at Peplink too, looks much more professional than many others http://www.peplink.com/balance/benefits/

I didn't know that about Xincom/Hotbrick, thanks. And Peplink looks like it is another that doesn't post its failover speed but I'll look further, thank you for that.

 

[maxpi]

Quote from dandxg:

I am no longer much interested in dual wan, but Xincom and Hotbrick are the same with different packaging.

I would look at Peplink too, looks much more professional than many others http://www.peplink.com/balance/benefits/

Hotbrick went belly up.

 

[dont]

I use a draytek Vigor, I have both lines running at the same time so if on fails the other is already there and on.

 

[J.P.]

Quote from maxpi:

Hotbrick went belly up.

Thanks, that would explain Xincom's lack of response.

 

[J.P.]

Quote from dont:

I use a draytek Vigor, I have both lines running at the same time so if on fails the other is already there and on.

What you are doing is load-balancing, is that right? So if you have load-balancing you intrinsically have failover, correct? If so, could I assume any twin-WAN router with load-balancing would be the same? Do I have this right?

 

[WinstonTJ]

Quote from J.P.:

What you are doing is load-balancing, is that right? So if you have load-balancing you intrinsically have failover, correct? If so, could I assume any twin-WAN router with load-balancing would be the same? Do I have this right?

I have Linksys RVS082 with firmware: 2.0.0.19-tm (Feb 20 2009 15:15:20) and tested yesterday via pulling one plug while pinging an external site (yahoo.com). I experienced various delays from ~125ms up to about 15seconds. Average over the 5 or so tests was under 5 seconds.

WAN-1 is 100mbit symetrical line, WAN-2 is fast DSL. Hope that helps.

Also, I'm able to sustain (not burst sustain) mid-90 megabit up/down on my 100mbit line via the RVS082 whereas on my Linksys WRT610N gigabit router I was only able to burst into the 90's and sustain in the 60's. The CPU/processor in the RVS will be much better than in any retail grade router (unless your RVS is really really old).

 

[dont]

Yep load balancing you can set the policy, Draytek seem to be quite good but I am sure other routers are probably just as good

 

[J.P.]

Quote from WinstonTJ:

I have Linksys RVS082 with firmware: 2.0.0.19-tm (Feb 20 2009 15:15:20) and tested yesterday via pulling one plug while pinging an external site (yahoo.com). I experienced various delays from ~125ms up to about 15seconds. Average over the 5 or so tests was under 5 seconds.

WAN-1 is 100mbit symetrical line, WAN-2 is fast DSL. Hope that helps.

Also, I'm able to sustain (not burst sustain) mid-90 megabit up/down on my 100mbit line via the RVS082 whereas on my Linksys WRT610N gigabit router I was only able to burst into the 90's and sustain in the 60's. The CPU/processor in the RVS will be much better than in any retail grade router (unless your RVS is really really old).

Thanks, Winston, that does help. And I hadn't considered the CPU/processor before but I will now.