Hi, is the Balance Two discontinued?
If yes, what is the intended replacement balance device?
Yes, it is.
The replacement device is the B One. It has (2) WAN ports, (4) LAN ports, and wifi.
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Or the new Balance 310. Both retail(ed) for $1k right?
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Thank you. Why did this happen? The BTWO is a very good in between device if no WIFI is needed.
The Two was basically rendered useless in the stack when the B One came out.
The B One
-Starts at $700 cheaper
-Has The same number of physical LAN and WAN ports
-Has the option for multiple internal modems
-Has 50Mbps faster speedfusion throughput
-Can have 2 separate WIFI WAN connections
-Has WIFI
-Can run edge compute with docker (needs a license)
-Is significantly cheaper for warranty contracts, 4 year is $165 on the base model(more with cell modem), that’s vs $700 for the Two or $316 for JUST incontrol on the Two for 4 years
I have never bench tested a Balance Two but the B One can push quite a bit more than 1Gbit throughput in the right circumstances, it’s a beast for it’s price in the stack.
There are a few more things but that’s the main ones. They are slowly replacing the lineup piece by piece and at a certain point it doesn’t make sense to keep building the old ones. When the B One came out, it beat the 305/380 in every benchmark (with the loss of one physical WAN) I have ever run, blew the old 210/310 away and matched the Two.
In the newer releases,
The new Balance 310 is kind of the next step up as long as 2 physical WAN/3 VLAN ports is enough for your application, it does not offer USB WAN. It’s $1000 and has 4Gbit switching capacity and 1Gbit speedfusion throughput.
The new 580x HW2 is the step up from there with 8Gbit of switching capacity.
By the time you are looking at a 580x HW2 though you should be talking to your rep to see if it, SDX, SDX pro or something else in the lineup makes more sense for your specific needs.
I actually wouldn’t be surprised if they discontinue the SDX soon, I really can’t think of many scenarios where the 580x HW2 or the SDX Pro aren’t better choices.
Something else to keep in mind, they often can’t actually lower the MSRP of older models and keep making them with the same parts. Even if available, they often cost close to the same as when they started manufacturing with them and it’s cheaper to just switch to newer chipsets.
Having a bunch of SKUs costs them and their sales partners a bunch of money in inventory and complicates repairs. With small business and home internet connections of up to 5 Gbit symmetric being available in more places and greater than Gbit being commonly available in many places, the entire product stack had to keep up and be competitive.
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