RV340 dual WAN aggregation

[joseru]

Hello all,

I have a RV340 connected to 2 WANs in load balancing mode but I would like to use it to add both WANs capacity for a single connection. That is, doubling the speed.

Is it possible with RV340 router?

In negative case, which equipment do you suggest?

Thanks in advance

[pgrey · Accepted solution]

If you have them at the same precedence level (i.e. 1-1, 2-2, etc) in the Multi-WAN settings, then this is "sort of" already the case.

The 340 does a great job of load-balancing, at least for IPV4 (still struggling to get the same with IPV6, but a whole different deal), in terms of running different access threads between the WAN connections.

You can see the difference, if you run two different types of speed test.  One that's primarily single-threaded/stream will default to one of your two WAN connections (and have that corresponding speed/rate).

If you use a multi-threaded/streamed test however, such as the DSLReports test, it'll "appear" to be pushing the combined speeds or throughput of both WAN connections.

If you're combining say two 100mbps connections, then you'll probably never know the difference, and clients in general will see the benefits of the combined throughput.

If you're trying to take two 0.5mpbs connections, and make them reasonably fast for single-threaded access, then you're not going to have the same experience.

You can bond the two WANs, but this is a lot more involved, and usually has very strict requirements on them (and is going to cost a lot more, accordingly).  

It kind of depends on what you're trying to do with the combined throughput, ultimately.

[joseru]

It worked perfectly.

Easy enough but it didn't seem obvious to me.

Thank you very much

[pgrey]

Glad to hear.

I thought about this a bit more, and I really should've mentioned volume of data vs. speed.

In your case (or mine too, I have a 340 running similarly) you're probably more interested in simultaneous volume of data (how much can you get at once), instead of "pure speed" of data (how fast can I get a giant data-set).

For most users, particularly SMB and that segment, it's more about multiple data streams, not pure speed, so load-balancing WANs are a great way to increase the flow, and most users would notice this as "speed".

The only downside is that if you have interrupt-sensitive streams, such as VOIP, you need to make sure they're configured correctly, or you'll get "choppy" audio, or possibly disconnects.

Glad I could help, I'm pretty junior at "real" network configs, I'm really more of a kernel (OS) kind of guy, the security models and data models just transfer pretty well (networking just being another type of data, with various protocols and a whole lot of "other" ;-]).