quick question: does anyone have a problem with the Hotbrick LB-2 dual wan router? my setup: at-home trader with cable modem, will be adding DSL soon. do NOT trade futures, or the big plays like CSCO/DELL/IBM/etc. i'm primarily a daytrader, most trades last between 30 minutes and 2 hours. i need a switchover for backup, have read through ET, and did google and deja searches, and for my setup, a dual wan router is the way to go. a 2-5 second switchover is NOT necessary; i did some checking and saw xincom, hawking (didn't like comments), linksys, and hotbrick. i think hotbrick has the best does what i need / cost / ease of use / support combination. so...does anyone have any problems with the hotbrick LB-2 dual wan router? thanks for any feedback on this...
check out peplink. my impression is that it's the gold standard among load balancers for home/small office use.
The Hotbrick LB-2 has a great reputation... I am gonna get one in the new year. About 6 months ago I bought a Xincom DGP502... And it load balanced OK... But never, ever, ever even once failed over under any circumstances... So it just a paperweight today. There is the cheapo $200-$300 class of multiple WAN routers... Where you just totally roll the dice... And many people seem to have bizarre problems. Then there is the enterprise $800-$1200 class of multiple WAN routers... Where you get real support... And, usually, a money back guarantee. Good luck.
Wouldn't it be better, more reliable and for a fraction of the cost, to get a dual Ethernet mobo for your next trading box? One for DSL, one for cable. Windows XP (and, presumably, Vista) will switch over if one connection fails. Other than load balancing -- something I understand very few people's bandwidth demands call for or even can benefit from, at least for most trading apps -- I am not sure I see the rationale of using an expensive, narrow single-purpose piece of hardware for trading. It would come into play rarely and would create an additional, critical / non-redundant failure point.
Opps, I just ordered a Xincom DGP502 after reading some positive reviews. It would suck big time if it doesn't do failover. Any other DGP502 users having the same failover problem?
With the routers in the $200-$300 range... Strange problems can crop up that can require a lot of troubleshooting... And firmware issues are common. You likely have a different ISP combination... And your Xincom router will probably work just fine... But it did not like MY combination of Rogers Cable and Magma DSL. For me... Spending more than 2-3 hours troubleshooting a router is just nor worth it... Because my time is worth about $300/hour.
Interesting advice... I did not know that XP does failover... And I do not need load balancing. But I need 3 networked computers MINIMUM to trade... So we are talking failover at the router level... not the PC level. Right now I have 2 routers... One for each broadband service... And if one goes down... I can move all the RJ45 cables to the other router in minutes... But this is a clunky solution. In 2006... I did 19,500,000 shares... And had about 97% total up time... so down on average 10 minutes/day. I want to move > 99% uptime... And the options are putting in maybe a fiber optic line or equivalent for $1000 to 3000/month depending of type of service... Or try other dual/multiple broadband routers. I'm gonna buy the HotBrick this week... And if that is not trouble-free... maybe try a $1,000 enterprise class router.
I'm looking to incorporate a dual wan router and have been looking at these: http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=452&sec=0 http://www.netgear.com/Products/VPNandSSL/WiredVPNFirewallRouters/FVS124G.aspx I currently have cable and want to add DSL or Verizon Fios. Is anyone currently using Verizon Fios as backup? Also any thoughts on the dual wan routers listed above.
I have had a Hotbrick LB2 for a number of months, works well and does fail-over as expected. The dual Ethernet connection approach works well if you run a single machine. Regards, TG
Why would you use FIOS as a back up. From everything I have read and heard it is far superior to any other residential grade connection. I wish I could get FTH here in Denver. I would stick to the hotbrick dual wan router. I have never heard a bad review of it. No offense but Netgear and Dlink are lowend IMO. My Linksys is great and it cost $60 bucks 3 years, but I would never buy a dual wan router from Linksys. When I get DSL as a back up I will get the hotbrick. Take a look http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=930112&CatId=584