Draytek Vigor 2860AC perfect!

vapor matt · 30 Oct 2017 at 15:59

I have just installed a draytek vigor 2860AC to replace my limited bright box2 and the difference is night and day. bit of a bugger to get connected which was more EE than anything else and there silly password system. but now its all up and running its great, ive gone from a 18 meg connection to a 24.5 meg connection and no more delays, the bright box was kind of locking up web pages and then 10 sec's later it was working, now its all smooth and silky.

wifi signal is now full everywhere, and even in my man shed at the bottom of the garden.

pro's it does everything you could want.

con's pricey, but I can live with that as its performance is worth the price.

MassiveJim · 30 Oct 2017 at 17:06

another con, despite being reasonably Tech savvy, the level of configuration and options in Draytek's kit blows my mind.
I have the older 2850N and most of the stuff I wouldn't be able to setup.

vapor matt · 31 Oct 2017 at 18:36

MassiveJim said:
another con, despite being reasonably Tech savvy, the level of configuration and options in Draytek's kit blows my mind.
I have the older 2850N and most of the stuff I wouldn't be able to setup.

It can be a con to people who just want to plug in the BT homehub or brightbox and get connected to the internet, but the draytek offers so much more connectivity control, along with much better performance on the internet itself. as the BT homehubs and brightbox's are free to new subscriptions they offer good enough performance to the
general home user that only wants internet connection and a basic home network. the draytek support is also very good if you do need help in configuration.

Caged · 31 Oct 2017 at 20:50

Their firewall policy UI is needlessly awful, and the CLI is barely functional. They are OK products, stuck in a weird place in the market.

MassiveJim · 1 Nov 2017 at 13:21

vapor matt said:
It can be a con to people who just want to plug in the BT homehub or brightbox and get connected to the internet, but the draytek offers so much more connectivity control, along with much better performance on the internet itself. as the BT homehubs and brightbox's are free to new subscriptions they offer good enough performance to the
general home user that only wants internet connection and a basic home network. the draytek support is also very good if you do need help in configuration.

I'm not saying they aren't a better product.
I'm merely saying I am not your "average" non techy type, I can configure a basic network, but the Draytek is beyond me, ie its not user friendly unless you are very network savvy.

Avalon · 1 Nov 2017 at 13:42

I hate to rain on your parade, but you could have put any working router in and got essentially the same result. Describing the virtues of the Vigor range is understandable, they’re good solid SOHO class devices, but no working router should behave as yours was, any working router should behave as your Vigor is.

Steveocee · 1 Nov 2017 at 14:41

HG612, RB750Gr3 and a UAP-AC-LR would have come in cheaper and would knock the socks off the Draytek in terms of functionality and performance but that really isn't a simple option. Drayteks are good for a one box solution to cover what you need and I'd say are a more business oriented product than the likes of the Asus and Billion equivalents.

OP I think the price premium you are happy to have paid is more for getting your internet working properly, not for the fact the draytek product is your saviour.

#Chri5# · 1 Nov 2017 at 16:50

Caged said:
Their firewall policy UI is needlessly awful, and the CLI is barely functional. They are OK products, stuck in a weird place in the market.

They also need to sort out the UI for the VPN policies, plus the amount of minor changes which ask for a reboot is plain crazy.

Steveocee · 1 Nov 2017 at 20:42

As a product generally aimed for business use, it's ridiculous how reboots need to be done. I can't think of the last time I had to reboot a MikroTik.

Admetos · 2 Nov 2017 at 02:31

Vigor 2860 is the Chuck Norris of routers.

Regardless of what internet requirements an SME has, you choose the Vigor 2860 and its job done.

Caged · 2 Nov 2017 at 15:50

Steveocee said:
As a product generally aimed for business use, it's ridiculous how reboots need to be done. I can't think of the last time I had to reboot a MikroTik.

I assume it's because they want you to buy into their management service (http://www.draytek.co.uk/information/our-technology/acs-si) that can schedule a reboot, so you can push changes in-hours and schedule the reboot when everybody has gone home.

Steveocee · 3 Nov 2017 at 13:59

Caged said:
I assume it's because they want you to buy into their management service (http://www.draytek.co.uk/information/our-technology/acs-si) that can schedule a reboot, so you can push changes in-hours and schedule the reboot when everybody has gone home.

I'm shocked and impressed they've managed to make that a marketable product. Rather than develop an OS that doesn't need a reboot for a minute change they've developed a management service to schedule reboots. Congrats to Draytek.

Eurofighter · 8 Nov 2017 at 10:25

Drayteks were used for business customers for the ISP I used to work for. Not easy to set up but they are decent.

WJA96 · 10 Nov 2017 at 07:13

I’m with Steveocee on this. A Mikrotik hAP AC fed from a Draytek Vigor 130 would have been significantly cheaper with better uptime and significantly more usable, not to mention feature-rich.

ChrisD. · 10 Nov 2017 at 08:17

I'm really not a fan of Draytek routers. I've said on here countless times that I don't understand why people rave about them so much. Draytek also seem to make up their own networking terminology.

Caged said:
Their firewall policy UI is needlessly awful, and the CLI is barely functional. They are OK products, stuck in a weird place in the market.

This.

Avalon said:
I hate to rain on your parade, but you could have put any working router in and got essentially the same result. Describing the virtues of the Vigor range is understandable, they’re good solid SOHO class devices, but no working router should behave as yours was, any working router should behave as your Vigor is.

And this.

pcfarrar · 24 Nov 2017 at 14:28

vapor matt said:
I have just installed a draytek vigor 2860AC to replace my limited bright box2 and the difference is night and day.

Any reason why you didn't get the new Draytek 2862? It's quite a bit more powerful than the 2860 and is the same price.

Jez · 24 Nov 2017 at 14:41

Steveocee said:
As a product generally aimed for business use, it's ridiculous how reboots need to be done. I can't think of the last time I had to reboot a MikroTik.

Never heard of this device. Can it reliably route gigabit? It seems like a perfect little device, very suspiciously cheap though?

pcfarrar · 24 Nov 2017 at 15:38

Jez said:
Never heard of this device. Can it reliably route gigabit? It seems like a perfect little device, very suspiciously cheap though?

There are plenty of cheap routers around, some less than £30, that can reliably route gigabit.

WJA96 · 24 Nov 2017 at 17:00

Jez said:
Never heard of this device. Can it reliably route gigabit? It seems like a perfect little device, very suspiciously cheap though?

Mikrotik is the Latvian version of Ubiquiti. Can it reliably route Gigabit? If you pick the right one, yes. And then some. And they make some really sexy stuff from £20 to £3000-ish depending on what you’re after.

Check out the Routerboard Ah1100 “The Dude”. It’s proper hardcore routing with two built-in M.2 SSDs to hold Dude database information so it’s VERY fast. £300 will put it in your server rack. If only I wasn’t a total Unifi fanboy......

Steveocee · 24 Nov 2017 at 22:13

Pffft
It’s all about having a proper cloud core. A 1009 would be stupidly monsterous overkill for anything home and most businesses, even some small isp use.

I love my ubiquiti kit, I use all UniFi aps for mine and all my families homes but with Mikrotik routers. The practically outweighs the pretty graphs.