I had to set my WAN Connection Buffer Size to 40 and 10 packets for my connections which have 2 Mbps and 500 Kbps upload respectively. I did that in order to have only 250ms of buffer, which means my connections are usable even when I’m uploading some big file. Otherwise, any large upload kills the internet connection.
The side effect is that both my connections have a very small download buffer. They are 15 Mbps and 10 Mbps, so I have only 33ms and 12ms of download buffer respectively, which is too low.
So I think it would be nice to have an option to set different WAN Connection Buffer Size for download and upload on each connection.
It appeared that I needed to be logged into the Peplink and then I did a command line login; FWIW when I tried to simply do a command line login without already being logged into the router it simply logged me into the router.
I posted this in another thread but wanted to make certain that you saw it too.
Thanks again
Well; for what it is worth.
I had read this thread as well as many others and decided to play around.
Initial baseline bufferbloat after numerous tests was a C; occasional D but never better.
I then used WAN buffer numbers between 1000 and 186 and at around 500 I regularly get an A with an occasional B and C. It is based on these finding that I will let it ride at 500 for awhile and see if I notice any overall improvements when within latency sensative activities.
As a comparison; this is what the system looked like prior to this change and I did not see a measurable change; meaning the transfer rates and Ping/latency may have improved but not drastically realizing that there are to many uncontrolled variables to do a true immediate compare.
Equipment used
2 Cradlepont AER2100 with CAT 6 modems with both WANs active and fed into the Balace zone operating in balanced mode; 1-1 because the speeds are the same on both 4G lines.
DL = 60 average
UP = 18 average
Ping/latency = 35 average
My bufferbloat was F on DSLReports, and after I set the WAN buffer to 40 and 10, it went to D and ocasionally C. I just tried 500, but it’s still D.
The difference for me, under testing, is that higher values raise the maximum bufferbloat time, though the score remains the same.
In real life applications, I found out that 2000 makes my connection unusable whenever I’m doing an upload (even a single one) because it would fill the buffers and any other application would find up to 48 seconds of buffer ahead of it.
So I used the rule of thumb that gave me 40 and 10 for 250ms of upload buffer. This fixed the upload problem, but as a side effect, I have a small download buffer, which will probably negatively effect multiple downloads.
If I had set the rule of thumb to download speeds, WAN buffer size would be 300 and 200, but then the upload buffer is too large.
Let’s see if Peplink can hear me and make upload and download buffers adjustable independently.
When I lowered the buffer size my bufferbloat score went up; in fact at around 500 my bufferbloat score was a A or B with all green circles however, it repeatedly (“many” times during the hour) kicked my son out of his online games whereas once it was set back at default 2000 my bufferbloat score hovers at a C and his online gaming activities immediately became stable again.
I can see when watching the test run that the upload is most affected going into the red during testing however, the download stays very low as such I too see the need to (if possible) adjust up and down buffer sizes differently.
Let’s see if the Peplink team have any ideas and or plans.