I’ve read and noticed myself that there are some speed limits for WAN over the USB port on the Balance 20x when using an Ethernet<->USB dongle. I’m curious how well the Max Adaptor 5G (the one with 4 antenna ports) and the B20x work together. Are they fully compatible yet wrt to software? And how about throughput for 5G connections? Does the USB serve as a bottleneck?
As far as I know, it’s a USB2 port on this specific model. So you are limited to a theoretical max of 480Mbps. USB3 is only present on higher end models.
Not that most 5G networks will give you any speed close to this on the low/mid bands that are used in most countries for 5G. The FlexModule Mini is a PCI-E bus, so will have potential higher throughput.
USB2 is what I’ve understood as well for B20x port. But with a USB to gigabit adaptor, I’ve had a hard time getting over 100Mbps through it. It’s been my assumption that even though the port can negotiate at USB2.0 (480Mbps) there is another bottleneck in the Peplink.
Contrast that with the newer Virtual WAN port where I seem to get the same speeds that I do over the regular WAN port.
T-mobile 5G (for me) can get over 300Mbps download and a little over 80Mbps upload where I am. I think I can get something similar from another vendor. The Flexmodule 5G is the obvious choice but none of the vendors I’ve looked at will allow me to try it before buying (or there’s a restocking fee) and so I figured the Max Adaptor might be a better idea. It’s a little cheaper and it would be more flexible than the flexmodule (go figure) if I don’t end up using it in a Balance 20X. But if throughput is crippled over the USB port, then that isn’t happy making either. I suppose I could use an intermediary device between the Max Adaptor and the Balance but that can get complicated…
Haven’t used the USB port for any connection higher than 100Mbps DSL, so not sure what the limit is. Have seen up to 250-300Mbps on other devices with USB2 interface.
And haven’t tested the Max Adapter 5G with Balance 20X to see the performance. Have seen 150-250Mbps with the FlexModule Mini CAT18 module, where I’m not sure what the limit is.