Now attention turns to its predecessor, the Draytek 2762. For many the 2762 may still be in use as a dependable unit and offers more or less the same feature set of the newer units. But, does it have enough grunt to support the higher speed profiles that full fibre internet offers, and will its hardware acceleration help boost its potential?

For the test I’m using a 2762ac running the latest 3.9.7_BT firmware. As before, the throughput is measured with iPerf3 on a Windows machine with two NICs, MTU on WAN2 is set at a constant 1492.

Out of Box

Starting with a factory configuration, WAN2 was enabled and set to use a dynamic IP.

Quoted throughput is 400Mbps, however in this test I could only achieve 361Mbps:

Hardware Acceleration

While hardware acceleration is available for this generation of router, Draytek seemed to shy away from announcing or advertising. This seems odd as the single line in the spec sheet states that throughput of 900Mbps could be achieved with it on, albeit with some caveats such as a loss of traffic graphs and the monitor page.

Still running an out of box config, HW ACC was enabled to auto. Subsequent tests yielded around 923Mbps:

Granted, this test using iPerf3 is very simple creating a single session on an otherwise idle router, real world applications may have an impact on its performance.

Next, I thought to apply a basic setup on the router to see if this has an impact, consisting of remote access with 3 ACL entries and SNMP v2 enabled.

Following a reboot, on the next test speeds were back down to a pre-accelerated ballpark of 340Mbps:

Thinking that HW ACC was set to auto was the issue, I manually assigned the LAN side client to be in the scope of acceleration, yet speeds remained in the low 300Mbps.

For a sanity check, acceleration was set back to auto and the basic config setup reversed, returning it to a config where 900Mbps was achieved. Yet speeds did not improve.

At a complete loss, it was factory booted and again setup with the bare minimum of WAN2 and auto acceleration enabled. Speeds returned to 900Mbps. Yet, again the addition of ACL and SNMP brought speeds back down to non-accelerated levels.

Below is before and after the basic config:

Note: Summary speeds are at a lower 840Mbps as a click of the “OK” or “Submit” button on the web GUI causes the router to drop packets until config is saved.

Summary

If you’re looking to get more out of a Draytek 2762, I’d only expect it to reliably achieve a throughput of 330Mbps over WAN2.

While hardware acceleration is an option and can at times offer 950Mbps under sterile conditions, its implementation puts you in a precarious position where the next config change could more than halve the throughput. With only a factory reboot being the only resolution.

Draytek’ s current portfolio offers 950Mps NAT throughput on Ethernet WAN ports, let’s see if that is theoretical or expected.

The test will use a 2763ac running firmware 4.4.3_BT

Hardware Acceleration

The key point on Draytek’s spec sheet for WAN2 throughput is the 950Mbps can be achieved with hardware acceleration enabled.

Hardware acceleration has been an option on Draytek for many years, however historically enabling this came with caveats ranging from the loss of data flow statistics to a reduction in firewall effectiveness.

Out of the box with FW 4.4.3 hardware acceleration is enabled, either Draytek is confident it has matured enough to be able to fit around most users’ requirements, or it needs to be enabled in order to keep the product as a viable product.

Test – HW Acceleration On

Using just enough configuration to get it “online”, WAN2 was enabled for dynamic IP mode.

Test performed on a single machine using iperf3, one NIC port plugged into WAN2 via a switch, other port into LAN1.

Average throughput on 60 second test: 929Mbps

Test – HW Acceleration Off

For those still dubious about HW acceleration on these devices, it was disabled and test re-run.

Average throughput on 60 second test: 541Mbps

QOS

For final test I thought to load it with a standard setup with HW on, not complex but included SNMP, TR-069, ACL lists on management interfaces, I also chucked in 4 VLANs and a few firewall rules.

Two observations here:

In my usual setup I add software-based QOS, this took average test speeds down to 423Mbps.

Second note and may be a quirk, when adding the VLANs and sending router for reboot, the router entered a reboot loop, resolved only by physically cycling power, meaning I lost the error codes for any potential diagnostics.

Switching to HW QOS, test speeds remained excellent at 946Mbps average.

Summary

If you have no concerns around hardware acceleration, the 2763/2765 does what it says on the tin with a typical config. Your mileage will vary especially dependant on the number of NAT sessions it has to deal with in the real world but these tests are certainly promising.

Difference between 2763 and 2765

These units are essentially the same, but as the 2763 is exclusive to the UK you’ll likely find greater stock availability for these over the 2765.

The only difference relates to a chipset for the VDSL on WAN1, the chipset in the 2763 conforms to UK standard VDSL2 but falls out of spec for some European countries where VDSL2 35b code is used. This stemmed from the chip shortage of a few years ago and the alternative chipset was used to boost availability.

Source: https://www.draytek.co.uk/our-solutions/videos/draytek-webinars/vigor-2763-series-new-product-information

My current router is a Draytek 2862ac, which has an advertised 400Mbps throughput at the WAN, but what can it actually achieve in the real world? This will be the basis on choosing a FTTP speed profile.

Speed testing a router can be setup with a couple of laptops…

In this example I’ll be using a similar Draytek 2860n router, this has an advertised firewall throughput of 300Mbps so this will be the number we are looking to hit.

Router Setup

Using a fresh factory rebooted 2860, plug the “client” side PC into a LAN port, then navigate to http://192.168.1.1 in a web browser and log in with admin/admin.

In the left-hand menu, navigate to WAN -> Internet Access.

Click the Details Page of WAN2.

Click the Static or Dynamic IP tab, then click the Enable button.

Here we will enter manual settings to simulate that of an ISP, enter the following IP values that will differ from factory defaults:

Note: Set WAN Connection Detection to Always On to force it as active.

Click OK to save and reboot the router.

Server PC Setup

While the client-side PC gets its network from DHCP, the WAN side PC needs to be set manually to fit the IP details set on the router.

On the WAN PC, navigate to change the network adaptor IP address:

Settings -> Network & Internet -> Ethernet -> Change adaptor options.

Right click the connection in use -> Properties -> Click Internet Protocol Version 4 -> Properties.

Enter the following to simulate the WAN side:

Click OK to apply changes, now plug in the network port to WAN2 of the Draytek.

Getting Data

Stats and throughput results will be delivered by iPerf3. For this to work it needs to be installed on two machines, one that will act as client on the local network, and another that will be the server sitting on the “internet” side of the router.

Visit the iPerf website and download the latest binaries for your operating system.

Extract the contents of the Zip file to the desktop of both machines.

Open up a command prompt window on both, and navigate to the desktop by typing cd desktop.

Firstly, on the server side, type iperf3.exe -s and enter, allow access to any security prompts. The window should report “Server listening on port 5201”

Now on the client side, type iperf3.exe -c 10.0.99.11 and enter. All things correct the two machines connect and start reporting bandwidth stats.

This reports the maximum throughput available between the two machines, the maximum is determined by the biggest bottleneck in the connection. In this setup it should be the firewall of the Draytek, but if your results are below expectations it’s worth investigating if something else is limiting the bandwidth. For example, a client PC using wireless N (150Mbps) technology would shift the bottleneck to the WiFi connection and will not be able to fully test the firewall.

Real World Setup

This example was conducted in a standalone environment, but a more accurate benchmark can be achieved by running this on a live system, for instance on a router where vDSL is established and the WAN2 speed is to be tested.

An issue you I ran into is even though the routing table has been updated on the Draytek, my Windows 10 machine is unaware on how to reach the test network.

To resolve, I added a temporary static route to push 10.0.99.0 traffic to WAN2.

In a command prompt window, run the following:

Replacing 192.168.1.1 with the gateway of the WAN2 setup.

Results

With the standalone example here using a 2860, the results averaging at 283Mps are comparable to the 300Mbps throughput advertised by Draytek.

I also conducted another test using my 2862 in situ, utilising the WAN2 port for testing alongside an active vDSL on WAN1. For an advertised 400Mbps throughput, the results were disappointing:

Where theoretical maximums are achievable, in reality there are a lot of factors that can impede this, I can only assume that my current setup involving multiple VLANs, VPNs and traffic shaping in place is causing the Draytek 2862 not to perform as advertised.

Whether this is expected behaviour or a misleading speed claim is another discussion.

Where a home server can differentiate greatly from hosted solutions is the speed and relative location on the net. Visitors who view a website relies on the upstream connection at the server end to receive the content, and when this is via domestic internet connection the upstream can much smaller than the heavily advertised downstream connection. So it’s worth checking the theoretical upload speed to establish what kind of service and content can be served.

In terms of location, hosting companies are as close to the internet backbone as feasibly possible to get the best speeds and lower latency. The backbone of the net is handled by major operation companies that handle the bulk of all internet traffic between countries and continents, these in turn have datacentres where the traffic from countries are trunked to the different internet providers and down to the end user. As data makes its way from the backbone to the end user, it can hop between different servers as it meanders towards the final destination. For each hop the networking equipment has to read where to send it on, and route it on the right path. This all takes time, even though it is measured in milliseconds, an extended number of hops and the volume of data packets needed may produce a noticeable wait for a user to see the desired page.

All home user’s computers need deal with negotiating its way through the service providers’ local infrastructure to get to most sites, but when visiting a site hosted on a home server, data may need to navigate another service providers’ network to reach the site. This is where visitors may experience slower loading times compared to mainstream sites.
So how to tell if your home hosted website will be speedy when out in the wild? There’s a few different ways to check:

DIY Simulation

Firstly, let’s address if the upstream connection may be a cause of concern. Start by finding out the true upstream connection speed, this can be achieved by both running an online speed check and noting down the upload/upstream speed. Alternatively look around the modem’s setting pages to establish the theoretical maximum upload speed.
Then use the developer tools that come with most popular web browsers to simulate loading the site with the upstream bandwidth that may be available to visitors. In the browser, using Chrome for this example, press F12 to bring up the developer tools. Then click on the Network tab and choose the No Throttling button. There are a number of pre-sets available but to get the best scenario, create a custom profile.

For the new profile, your upload speed will become the profiles downstream speed, and your downstream speed can be the upload speed, latency is also important, and where the use of Dynamic DNS can really slow a connection down. To find out a realistic latency value, perform an online ping test to your own domain, and choose a latency value based on the results.

Hit F5 to refresh the page and watch how the site loads from an outside visitor’s perspective. The graph created in the developer tools gives insight into what elements of the page loaded and when. Interesting to note is the top row entry with the URL to the chosen page, as this is the time the visitor would have waited before seeing any text or loading action on their screen. It’s critical to get this quickly as with the increasing speeds of the internet, end users will quickly dismiss a site as being not available within a single second of not seeing any new content on screen.
This method is great when updating a site as it gives instant insight to how the page will load for visitors with any page change impacts can be viewed on the fly.

Third Party

The second option is to use a third party, a service that is already out in the internet wilderness and able to provide detailed insight to website loading times. This gives advantages over browser simulation as the virtual visitor is an actual machine on the internet, so any delays that a real visitor will have can be observed. But be aware that these services are servers themselves, and therefore may be closer to the internet backbone than the typical home visitor. Even though it’s a great tool to use periodically to gauge how the site is performing.
I prefer to use webpagetest.org to check my site, as along with bar graphs that display loading times for individual elements, it also gives the option to view a video that visually simulates the loading times just like a real visitor to the site would.

Get Mobile

A third and simpler option is to just find another computer away from the local network and visit the website to get a feel for loading times. I’ve used this in the past and it does indeed give a good indication of speed of load. However, be aware that the biggest skew point of this method is the choice of internet service provider, if the internet connection of your test computer and home server is via the same provider then the data would need only travel through its infrastructure creating a false speed advantage, not to say that it’s incorrect. If a site was to target users of the same ISP in the same locale then this would be considered an advantage, but does not provide an accurate sample of the wider user base. If the test computer was on a different ISP infrastructure, this is a better simulation as packets would still need to go to a datacentre to transfer between companies, much like it would for users over a country regardless of location. But be aware that this method is based on best case scenario.

And thanks to the steer to mobile devices, a public Wi-Fi or mobile data can be used to test a website. Cellular networks will definitely use a different infrastructure to the one the home server resides on, but less chance on public Wi-Fi. But with all networks and especially with public ones your test data may be competing with many other users locally, that can negatively affect the results.