SYSWAN SW24 Dual WAN Load Balancer 2 x 10/100Mbps WAN Ports 4 x 10/100Mbps LAN Ports

Pros: Inexpensive for promised functionalilty.

Cons: The unit would not failover despite SysWan Support's help with options. It also reports packet losses when pinging to destinations beyond about 10 hops, which my current router does not exhibit.

Pros: Does what it says it does. Relatively straightforward interface. Stable as hell, I never reboot this thing.

Cons: Sometimes has trouble with secure sites like online banking. The solution for me was to loosely bind the accountant's computer to one of the two WAN ports. That way the secure connections don't get confused and since it's loose binding the connection will fail over to the other WAN if the preferred one isn't available. This was easy to do in the router setup.

Other Thoughts: I used this initially to tie 2 DSL lines together for a customer to get better speeds when all the employees are working. The DSL started getting flaky after a while so we switched to 1 DSL line (better speed) and 1 T1 line (better reliability.)

The router's handled both very well.

Pros: Solid build with relatively easy interface. Cost

Cons: Support either via phone or email is non-existent. Zero response.

Other Thoughts: In this day and age where everything is poorly made support is what separates the men from the boys. I have used this model and the VPN version and when they work they are fine. When they don't.... read above

Pros: Easy Setup Out of the Box

Cons: No built in VPN

Other Thoughts: My first real Firewall. Setup Wan1 as Comcast XFinity without any changes to default settings. Wan2 is ATT UVerse WiFi router. Needed to set it to a fixed IP address but I got it to work.

I have 3 PC's and a WiFi router on my side of the Firewall. A custom app using TCP/IP in the PC's would not connect using LAN ports in the FireWall. It must have blocked the port. I don't know why since these LAN ports are on my side of the FireWall. Put in a LAN switch and they started talking OK. Still trying to wrap my mind around the DHCP/DNS/Security configuration of this 4 branch network.

Pros: Stable router, good buy for the money.

Cons: On their website, Syswan Technologies represents themselves as a global company. They're not. If you Google their address, you'll see that "suite 101 -388" is a UPS store postal box.

More Googling turned up their CEO, who, other than a secretary, seems to be the entire company, including tech support.

So when you call tech support, you get an answering machine. If you call sales, and ask for tech support, "they" are always in a meeting.

As others have posted, when you reach "him", you'll get one shot at an issue.

His Indian accent is hard to understand, and that he speaks into a dodgy speaker-phone doesn't help. Prepare to say: Excuse me, could you repeat that?" a number of times.

If you call a 2nd time, forget it.

Other Thoughts: If you really know your way around routers, I guess this could be a good buy.

But less knowledgeable buyers, who might need Syswan's "tech support" beware.

Pros: I have these $180.00 routers deployed across 20 different networks, the biggest one with heavy network usage 7 days a week with over 200 users. They never go down. They are always up and never have to reboot for some random issue. I have then programmed to auto restart every morning so it's fresh for the day. Oh and if you do reboot the router mid day no one notices because it only takes about 8 seconds to come back online!

These routers are highly recommended.

Cons: They don't do my laundry or cook my dinner.

Other Thoughts: I've read a few reviews that surprisingly were not as high as I would have liked to see. For starters, look at the price. You are paying 180 for a dual WAN solutions. Yes it's not gigabit, but for $180.00 you get a stable, secure, and feature rich router.

There is no reason anyone should give lower then a 5 star because features are not available. And to be honest, I don't know what the hell feature they would be missing! These things are loaded with so many different options you could play with it all day. Anyone complaining or giving less than 5 stars should have read closer on the feature list before bashing an outstanding product.

Pros: Easy setup for -most- experience levels. The load balancing/fail-over configuration options are much better than other routers I've tried (Netgear 336). User interface is very good for those that are familiar with router setup – not cluttered and graphical/slow like some others. Works great which my 2 DSL lines. What I like most – load balancing, QOS, great user interface, configuration options, stable and seems to be well made.

Cons: My only complaint is I'd really like to have VLAN support which it does not have – not really expected at this price point but I’d be willing to pay a couple hundred more if it were available along with gigabit speeds on the LAN ports. The router only has 100mb switch ports, but anyone who would typically use this level of 'prosumer' router is probably using a separate switch anyway. With the lack of VLAN support this really isn't an issue. My only regret is I should have bought the SW24 VPN router.

Other Thoughts: For the price there is nothing that comes close in performance or configurable options. This is a router that will satisfy the needs of most home users and maybe some small business needs. The configuration interface is easy to use and allows for quick and easy setup. For those looking for a graphical interface and expect generic push button configuration for their needs may be disappointed, but anyone with any router experience should be fine. This is definitely a router which a home user can grow with. The interface is simple enough for the novice, yet powerful enough to do what you need.

I’ve read where people complained of the router dropping connections and being very slow at times. I ran into the same problem when I forgot to disable DHCP server on one of my access points that is attached to the SW24, multiple DHCP servers in a single address space can drive you nuts. Once I disabled DHCP server on the offending AP everything has been fine. Another anomaly is th

Pros: If you need a dual WAN solution, you cannot go wrong here. There is no other LB I have heard of for this price. Highly configurable. Tech support is great. USA company, talk to a real human right away and they are right in Oregon. Like most, I have CATV & DSL. CATV connection is straight forward, set your DSL modem to bridge mode, and add the PPPoE login info to the LB. Had this for > 3 months w/ NO downtime.

Cons: hmmm.. I miss my tomato router realtime bandwidth graph. But really not a big deal.

Other Thoughts: I paid about $170, but newegg seems to have discontinued. Not sure why, it is still listed on the syswan website.. This might make a good cheap solution for a small business that wants 99% uptime too. Don't be confused into thinking this will split up each individual download to maximize both pipes. That is more a function of TCP/IP and would be an order of magnitude more difficult to accomplish. It will route to the least busy link however. You can do things on one (say browse, dl or tcp junk) while stream/conferencing on the other (udp junk).

Pros: Well made. Heavy metal case. Good documentation. Fairly easy GUI. Great features. Works great with load balancing. Does as it advertises.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: I live in the sticks, so my DSL is not perfect (3m down) and my cable varies (1 to 6m down). I have both. Now with this router I can use this with BOTH isps at the same time. Using speedtest.net the speed test results are interesting. Sometime I seem to use one or the other WAN. Sometimes it seems to use both.... I have gotten over 10m down sometimes now, and I don't have a clue why it goes so high. Easy to understand, good help function. Best internet connectivity in three years at this home. Happy.

Pros: Works as expected! Also you can set up the router to send you an e-mail when you lose one of connections - WAN specific.

Cons: Not trivial to set up - probably applies to all routers of this type - HOWEVER - see below...

I have ADSL and Cable - they are very different in terms of networking - setting up Cable connection was automatic, ADSL - this is where the problem is.

Other Thoughts: SYSWAN tech. support is unbelievable! A guy spent about 1.5 hours with me on the phone (free) and set all up. He also gave me tips how to convert a wireless router to make it into an Access Point