RT-AC88U Dual Wan load balance

[SystemF]

Hi guys! From next week i will have second isp, from 1st I get 50/25 from second (new one) I will
have 100/100.
In dual wan settings set up: primary wan - wan; secondary wan - ethernet lan port 1.
Load balance ration: 2:1 or if i correctly understand it 2 connection the router will made throw wan and 1 throw lan1, if i download something? Am i wrong somewhere or what is best load balance config in my case?

 

[pete y testing]

you need to understand the difference between load balancing and link aggregation , you not going to get 150/125 unless both the router and isp's support link aggregation

 

[SystemF]

So i must ask the isp is they support link aggregation? But link aggregation is fot 1st adn 2nd lan port for example, you can plug in nas (wich has 2 lans and support it) and increase speed up to 2 Gbps, i don't want this just load balance.
I'm little confused....

 

[ColinTaylor]

you need to understand the difference between load balancing and link aggregation , you not going to get 150/125 unless both the router and isp's support link aggregation

I think it might be you that needs to understand the difference between load balancing and link aggregation.

Load balance ration: 2:1 or if i correctly understand it 2 connection the router will made throw wan and 1 throw lan1, if i download something?

You are correct to a certain degree. Individual network connections can only be established through one of the WAN interfaces. Most downloads are single-threaded so will either be at 100Mbps or 50Mbps, not 150Mpbs. To get the full 150Mbps you would have to use a multi-threaded downloader (and even then it would depend of how Asus have implemented the load balancer).

Load balancing only works well when you have lots of simultaneous network connections all using the internet at the same time. Like an office environment with 50 users all browsing the web and downloading emails. In such a situations the total bandwidth available for all users is 150Mbps. For a typical home environment it is less useful.

 

[pete y testing]

Most downloads are single-threaded so will either be at 100Mbps or 50Mbps, not 150Mpbs.

that's exactly what i just pointed out wasnt it lol

 

[ColinTaylor]

that's exactly what i just pointed out wasnt it lol

Er, no. You never mentioned anything about single or multi-threaded transfers, and the same argument can be made for link aggregation which is what you were suggesting. Link aggregation is not normally done on the WAN side (unless you're using specialist equipment), but load balancing is.

 

[pete y testing]

Link aggregation is not normally done on the WAN side

yes it is , its also referred to as link bonding and its how you would achieve adding the two connection speeds together and has been done for a long time now with a wan bonding router and an isp that supports it

 

[ColinTaylor]

yes it is , its also referred to as link bonding and its how you would achieve adding the two connection speeds together and has been done for a long time now with a wan bonding router and an isp that supports it

I'm well aware of bonded connections having used it myself in the past with ISDN lines.

But as bonding and load balancing are both forms of link aggregation you appeared to be making a distinction between them and what is normally referred to a link aggregation (aka port trunking). Otherwise why didn't you say "bonding"?

He already said that the internet connections come from two different ISP's so that makes it unlikely that bonding is an option. And that still won't improve his single-threaded download speeds.

 

[System Error Message]

i suggest using ethernet port 3/4 for WAN 2, because LAN ethernet port 1 and 2 are the only ports that are LACP capable. LACP is not dual WAN. You can have a WAN over LACP but the other way round is not LACP, it is called bonded WAN or load balancing. bonded WAN is a very very different thing and is basically layer 4.

 

[kaiserskier]

I have 2 WANs with an odd characteristic. One is much faster for download (3:1), while the other is much faster for upload (5:1). I need to setup Dual WAN for load balancing in a way that maximizes the use of both connections, but that means that I need different load balancing rules for the download and the upload ratios.

So far I have only found routers that allow a single load balancing rule of thumb (like 60% traffic on WAN 1 and 40% on WAN2), but that only works to satisfaction when the upload/download speed proportions on both WAN connections are the same.

Does anyone know of a router that allows this degree of flexibility in the configuration? Ie, a router that allows something like:

Download: 75% on WAN 1 / 25% on WAN 2
Upload: 15% on WAN 1 / 85% on WAN 2

Thank you!

 

[RMerlin]

That's not how load balancing works, this is simply not possible. Sorry.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I have 2 WANs with an odd characteristic. One is much faster for download (3:1), while the other is much faster for upload (5:1). I need to setup Dual WAN for load balancing in a way that maximizes the use of both connections, but that means that I need different load balancing rules for the download and the upload ratios.

So far I have only found routers that allow a single load balancing rule of thumb (like 60% traffic on WAN 1 and 40% on WAN2), but that only works to satisfaction when the upload/download speed proportions on both WAN connections are the same.

Does anyone know of a router that allows this degree of flexibility in the configuration? Ie, a router that allows something like:

Download: 75% on WAN 1 / 25% on WAN 2
Upload: 15% on WAN 1 / 85% on WAN 2

Thank you!

I don't know how Asus' load balancer works but I suspect it's nothing more that the "standard" iptables method. If my memory is correct all that is happening is that the outgoing connections are being split between the two ISP's in the specified proportion.

It is important to realise two things here. 1) The load balancing is happening on the outbound connections only. The router has no way of controlling the inbound traffic. 2) The balancing is done on the number of connections not the bandwidth. So in theory you could have one connection active on WAN1 which is downloading lots of data, and 3 (or any number) connections active on WAN2 that are downloading almost nothing.

Please let me know if Asus' method is different.

 

[SystemF]

Hi guys! Today i setup dual wan (2nd ISP is now on test period 50/50). First ISP a get 50/25 Mbps, second till tuesday 50/50 Mbps.
So the problems start here, hey also there are good news I set up Load balance 1:1
On torrents i've reached 11.2 MBps + overhead (extra info on the packets i set up overhead info in utorrent status bar to see how much of speed is wasted) about 800 KB/s or 11.2 MBps = 89.6 MBps + ~ 800 KBps = 12 MBps.
The bad news. When i run ping i.e. to google i get times out. And ofc the upload is impossible to control with load balancing so i get only 50 Mbps from 2nd ISP. SNB site open slowly i guess its on my 2nd wan in my case Ethernet port 1. I want to set up routing rules. I want SNB only to be opening for future being on my primary wan.
Is this correct:
Source IP: My static IP from my primary wan // Destination IP: SNB IP address, wan unit: primary wan,
And i see Routing rules (Max Limit : 32) so my limit is only 32 rules?

 

[kaiserskier]

That's not how load balancing works, this is simply not possible. Sorry.

To some extent, I know from actual experience that it IS possible. My router is the RT-AC68R, not the 88. My ISP connections are (1) 120Mbps down, 6 Mbps up (yes it sucks on the upload), and (2) 50 Mbps down and 30Mbps up.

When using multiple concurrent download threads, like with more than 30 active threads (using a download manager), I do get 120+50 = 170Mbps of download speed.

So yes, this IS possible. I've seen it happen. Of course, it requires a multi-threaded downloader.

The problem is that I need one load balancing ratio for the download, and another ratio for the upload, as my ISPs' upload/download speeds are not proportional.

So my question is simply if anyone knows of a router that allows such configuration.

Thanks!

 

[pete y testing]

When using multiple concurrent download threads, like with more than 30 active threads (using a download manager), I do get 120+50 = 170Mbps of download speed.

yes multiple thread eg torrents are different , but for normal real world use like surfing the web or downloading content / streaming they dont add up at all and thats the point

So my question is simply if anyone knows of a router that allows such configuration.

not in the domestic market as far as i know . you might be able to do it in a gateway solution like psfense but i have now idea if it will or not

 

[SystemF]

Today I've upgrade it my second broadband connection to 100/100 Mbps my second from other isp 50/25.
I set up load balancing in ratios: 1:1, 2:1, 3:1 no luck to get 150 Mbps download from 2 different isps. So i set up fail over. I'm disappointed probably i can't set up the rt-ac88u, with right ratios of load balancing. Or just the router can't do this. When I downloading torrents speed is alwasys same about 12 MBps goest to 1st isp, second connection don't do anything.
Or just laod balancing is a like someone else says in other thread "hit and miss" if don't work it, you can't do anything else.

 

[ColinTaylor]

@SystemF I suspect that this is just the way the bittorrent client works. Because you have two internet connections you have two different WAN IP addresses. The bittorent doesn't understand this and is just using one of the addresses.

It might be interesting to see what you get if you set the load balancing to 1:1 and then ran say 4 or 5 different speed tests in different browser tabs at the same time. Theoretically you should be able to max out both internet connections.