SYSWAN SW88 Multi WAN Load Balancer 2 to 8 port 10/100Mbps RJ45 Auto MDI/MDIX WAN Ports 8 to 14 port 10/100Mbps RJ45 Auto MDI/MDIX LAN Ports

Pros: - Multi-Wan

Cons: - Load-balancing does not work on a QOS basis
- Fail-over is essentially broken because all ping's are successful independent of state
- Syswan support is terrible.
- GUI is poorly implemented and seemingly intentionally complicated. Does not follow standards and requires more work than is necessary for proper configuration.

Other Thoughts: We purchased this router for its multi-wan capabilities. We used a combination of 3 ADSL connections and a WiMAx connection. After configuration difficulties and multiple reboots, all WAN's were configured. We later realized that the router wasn't failing-over when a connection went down.

This router uses an icmp ping (configurable as a "Health check") to check the "health" of each WAN. This feature is completely broken! When we disconnected the dsl line from our modem the "Health check" would verify the ping on the WAN as a "success". This meant that the router believed there was an active connection and would continue to route traffic through said WAN. Therefore, the router does not failover. This router is essentially useless for the purposes that it is intended. We had to continuously reboot the router every as it stopped working every couple of days.

Finally, Syswan support is terrible and did not respond to numerous calls and emails.

Pros: Lots of great features for an incredible price! New Firmware just came out and it fixed a T1 connection problem i had. Syswan has great customer support and they will actually return your call within 24 hours!

Cons: None so far. The new firmware works like magic.

Other Thoughts: If you need a good load balancer with many features for a small to medium size company at a reasonable price, the Syswan SW88 is a great pick.

Pros: Note this review is for the duolinks sw24 from syswan but for some reason even though i bought it at newegg i can't find it anymore. -Pros - auto switches between 2 internet connections (it does not combine them). Pretty easy to configure web interface. Knowlegeable support but very long call back. Nice info status page displays current down/up speeds on each wan port, cpu, memory, queue % stats.

Cons: Not stable. This product feels like it's in beta stage. My product firmware corrupted in the first day of use. After hard reset it crashed at speedtest(dot)net on the upload portion. Support gave me an unpublished 1.04 firmware which resolved the crash. However the configuration file got corrupted which made the router freeze up when i clicked on (Dhcp/Lan). So I had to call and wait for a tech to call back again (seems to be 1 french person cause I got the same person) and he helped me fix the config file and re-upload it. It fixed the crash on DHCP/LAN section. However the router routinely reboots several times during the day don't know why & it doesn't log any info. Reboots are pretty fast so people don't really notice but it's annoying knowing this happens. Poor logging. Poor firewall rules. You can't specify two ranges of IPs in the firewall rules. Which means I can't block a portion of my network from direct internet access via the firewall.

Other Thoughts: Had some problems with E-mail being sent out on 2nd wan port not being a trusted IP and actually listed on blacklists. had to force e-mail out on WAN1. I need this product despite its flaws and beta like quality. My dsl connection is unreliable and it has made me realize i need redundant internet connection. this product does this but unfortunately I've experienced severe problems with it. I don't know if I'll ever resolve the random reboots since I can't recreate it for support. But then again it's cheaper than the cisco 1811 $670 which was insanely complicated just to bring up FastEthernet ports via command line.

Pros: This load-balancing router supports up to 8 WAN ports with plenty of options to tune up your internetworking environment at a very reasonable cost. It can also be used in bridging modes.

This replaced a couple of FVS124G LB routers, one of which was failing inexplicably. While I managed to get the FVS124G devices working adequately, I still had to manage my routing issues via two separate units preventing me from balancing the load across all lines. The Syswan unit now allows me to balance my loading across up to 8 - yes, 8 lines if I ever need to.

Cons: Not for the novice or faint-of-heart. This device is a complex device that does complex things in a complex environment.

The only device related complaint that I have is that changing the number of WAN ports being managed will reset all other configuration information. I settled this issue by initially setting the device to the maximum 8 WAN ports, leaving unused ports open. The router immediately understands that these ports should not be used for routing since the “health check” feature quickly determines that the port is not connected to a live internet connection.

Other Thoughts: 1) The load-balancing feature provides ample opportunities to distribute your load.
2) I chose to use the “fastest” mode which spreads the load based on the bandwidth remaining for each WAN port.
3) You will probably need to use “session persistency” for most of your traffic since many, many sites view a change in source IP to be a man-in-the-middle security attack. Rather than spending my life experimenting, I just enabled session persistency for all UDP and TCP ports and am having good results.
4) I use protocol and port binding to insure that internally generated traffic intended to come back via one of my lines is directed out via a different line to insure that I get an “outside” view of my connections.
5) I now have all modems working transparently, passing all traffic to the router for handling. Every problem I had installing this device turned out to be a modem configuration problem or my own misunderstanding of exactly how a feature would interact with the modems

Pros: The price and flexibility of this unit is very very appealing to small businesses that need reliable internet. Their technical support group is paid (Priority), but if you can handle a 12 to 24 hour delay on a call back, you can get it working within an hour. Email notifications if a link goes down.

Cons: Problems with websites that use DNS depths of more than 2 sub-domains will time out (For example AOL's Webmail system). To get the updated firmware you will need to email Syswan to get it going correctly.

Many features have been altered or removed from what is listed in the documentation. My guess is due to bugs.

SOME SECURE SITES HAVE PROBLEMS WITH MULTI-LINK PPP AND THIS DEVICE CAN CAUSE ISSUES. I've only run into 1 website so far with this problem. Creativity can fix this problem.

Lack of Gigabit, Fiber, or WiFi upgradability.

Requires complex preplanning to install.

Lots of reboots to change settings.

Other Thoughts: I installed this system with 3 internet connections. DSL, Cable and a tertiary 3G EVDO connection. The area is plagued with construction so one of the 3 connections is going out constantly. Users will notice only a bit of lag as the packets are redirected to one of the other wan ports.

The web interface is a secure page and is encrypted. Configuring port forwarding is tricky, but rock solid reliable.

Pros: Works well and as advertised. Great for an environment were different solutions need to work together. We needed the reliability of a T1, but the bandwidth is not enough for our 100 users. We don't have much cash, so we bought this and a dsl line. After a couple hours of preparation, and a few tense hours of installation and troubleshooting in our live environment, I got it installed and working perfectly. Now, all mail traffic goes through our T1, and our multiple IP addresses are NAT-mapped securely to their proper internal IPs. Users get faster Internet through custom configured load balancing. Everyone's happy. And if the DSL goes down, the T1 takes over all the traffic automatically. Oh, and my DSL line is setup with DDNS. Perfect.

Cons: The manual does not go into enough depth to fully prepare your installation ahead of time. When I read the instructions, I said to myself, "Well I'm pretty sure that this setting does [this], but it might mean [that]." Setting descriptions could be more clear, but worth the initial incertainty once it's running.

Other Thoughts: Might save you some time here: If you have an internal DNS server (such as one that's running with a Domain Controller), you may run into problems with DNS. The DNS server that comes with ISP1 may not handle requests from the IP address of ISP2. You have two options to fix this: 1. Route all recursive DNS queries through the WAN port of ISP1 or 2. Pay for a DNS provider (or get one for free if your comfortable with that) that will handle requests from all your IP addresses. I picked option 2, because I wanted the fastest solution available. If the connection to ISP1 is overloaded, I want my DNS queries to go through ISP2. The DNS that comes with your ISP is generally slow anyway, so paying $60 a year doesn't hurt. I'm using Recursive DNS with DynDNS.com.

Pros: I can't say enough about how great this unit is, or how great the company behind it is. I have been through thousands of dollars worth of networking hardware over the years, and have a junk box full of rejects to prove it. This is the first router to fully meet my needs and prove to be rock solid reliable. I am using this unit with a cable connection and a dsl connection. Behind it is an Apple Xserve, a PBX running PIAF, an Ubuntu Linux Server, a video surveillance system, a Windows 2008 server, and a VERY busy home network. This unit loafs along, with both CPU and memory utilization generally under 20% - usually less than 10%. The balancing feature works well, but you may want to experiment with the settings to get optimal performance. For me, going to packet based balancing seemed to work best. Support is excellent, and my communication with Syswan leads me to believe that they are dedicated to providing a world class product with support to match at a modest price.

Cons: This is a very feature rich device. The on-line help and documentation could stand some expansion, as sometimes it isn't always clear what a feature does, or why you might want to choose one option over another. I'm not new to this stuff, but occasionally a features name or description just doesn't convey what the feature actually does. But this is a minor quibble on such a great product.

Other Thoughts: I wish that all manufacturers would learn from these guys. There is a huge need for quality products and quality support - even for Home/SOHO/Small Business markets. I was so frustrated that I was on the verge of going to the expense of buying a Cisco (and forcing myself to go through the attendant learning curve). Given what I was facing, I decided it was well worth it to take a risk on the Syswan first. It was the best possible decision. Thanks Syswan - I'd give you 10 eggs if that were an option.

Pros: This router allows you to hook up EIGHT incoming ISP lines. YES, EIGHT. T-1, DSL, Cable, whatever. As long as you have an ethernet 10/100 connection to its interface, you can connect to it. When I installed this we had two DSL lines. We then added a cable carrier, a second DSL carrier and a Wi-Max carrier. In this way we should NEVER be totally down due to carrier death. I do know we can still be killed by some idiot outside the building with a backhoe, but short of laying line ourselves, I don't see how to prevent that. The lines for the various carriers do exit on opposite ends of the building so it would take SOME talent for them to take us down.

I called tech support a couple of times to find out what I needed to ask the carriers, but most of the setup worked just fine. Tech support was VERY knowledgable and responsive, but they seemed to be small company oriented. I would not bet a Fortune 500 on this yet.

Cons: There is only an aggregate of 80mbps of throughput. A few years ago I wouldn't have even blinked at that on 8 ports, but now... eight 10mbps DSLs, sure! We are even going to see 50/20mbps FIOS here in the next few years. I guess I will have to find another solution then or hope they come out with a better unit.

Other Thoughts: This is a great product for the price. You can get the same functionality from the big boys for a lot more $$$. Take a look at the peplink products if you need more throughput, but hold onto your wallet. Cisco is the next step up and don't even bring your wallet, bring your bank manager.

Pros: Multiple Internet Connections with Load Balancing and Failover- works great, internet runs much much faster than the load balancing on the rv082. Also feels more stable.
1. User interface is simple and straigtforward for a moderately skilled i.t. person.
2. Tech support actually knows how to fix the product when you have an issue, even remoted in to assist with configuration- remote access is easy to enable and disable.
3. Unit works very very well, internet is stable and fast, load balancing is much better than on the rv082 it replaced.
4. multiple wan ports- configurable up to 8 ports.

would definately reccomend

Cons: 1. Syswan tech support was a bit slow to respond, took an email and they then returned my call later that day, once they did respond though the quality of the support was first rate.
2. Quality of service controls only allow you to guarantee bandwidth for certain applications, not set quality of service by priority- was told that this feature will be added in the next 90 days with a firmware update. This shouldn't be a problem for most people.
2. Firmware update wipes all configuration settings, must download config file and restore it after firmware update.
3. Changing the number of ports set up as wan ports wipes all router settings requiring you to reconfigure- this issue is fixed in the internal builds of firmware they have, during my tech support call the firmware was updated to a version that resolves this quirk.

Other Thoughts: I would definately reccomend the product so far.

I purchased this router as a replacement for a linksys rv082. We have a small corporate office and in order to get sufficient bandwidth and connection redundancy we use 2 internet connections from different providers. We always had issues with the rv082 and it finally started having major issues a couple weeks back. This was the second rv082 that had gone out on us in 2 years so I wanted to go with a different replacement. This is the first device i have seen at a reasonable price that provides the ability for even more than 2 internet connections... works great so far. Tech support was very helpful and when we had an issue they spent over an hour on the phone with me and remoted into the device to fix the problem.