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06 Jul 2011
As an entry-level combined wireless and remote access solution for small and medium businesses, the DSR-1000N has plenty of features on offer for the price, although it's not the easiest device to configure and use.
Pros:
Dual WAN, 3G dongle support, SSL VPN server, full IPv6 support
Cons:
Lack of examples in documentation, no IPSec VPN client software, hard to configure and use
Price: £395
Manufacturer: D-Link
D-Link has a wide range of small and medium business networking products, including switches and wireless access points, but rather surprisingly it had no wireless routers designed for branch office or teleworking use.
This has now been rectified with the DSR-1000N Unified Services Router, a rather grand title for a dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi router with wired and 3G WAN connectivity, plus support for up to 70 IPSec VPNs and 20 SSL VPNs.
It's designed for locations with up to 50 users looking for a one-stop solution for internet access, remote access and Wi-Fi.
A compact, fanless unit with an all-metal chassis, the DSR-1000N comes with an 19in rack-mount adapter, or can be used as a desktop unit. All ports are front-accessible, comprising dual Gigabit Ethernet WAN ports, four Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, two USB ports and an RJ-45 serial console port (an RS232 adapter is provided).
Configuring it manually as a DHCP client for our cable broadband ISP was simple, but we also tried the internet connection wizard from the web management interface.
This is very basic, but does the job for less technical users. There are also wizards for the Wi-Fi settings and for creating IPSec VPN profiles.
There's no wizard for the second WAN port, however, which can be configured manually for a second wired internet connection, or for a 3G dongle plugged into one of the USB ports (at the moment, it only supports the D-Link DWM-156 dongle, which costs £59.99 including VAT). Printers and storage can also be shared via the USB ports, which may appeal to some small office or home users.
The second of the two WAN connections can be used for load balancing (with round-robin or spillover modes) or for automatic failover/failback for the primary WAN. It can also be configured as a dedicated DMZ port for running public-facing servers.
VPN Wi-Fi router; 2 x Gigabit Ethernet WAN ports; 4 x Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports; 1 x RJ-45 console port; 2 x USB2 ports; 70 IPsec VPN tunnels; 20 SSL VPN tunnels; 802.11a/b/g/n dual-band Wi-Fi, WEP/WPA/WPA2 Personal/Enterprise encryption; dimensions 280x44x180mm (19in rack-mount adapter included)
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Do you agree?
WAN Speed Issue
Thank you Simon Evans for pointing out the facts about the WAN Speed issue on this router. I'm currently on a 100Mbps Fiber broadband connection and am experiencing the same problem of achieving 50-60Mbps connection and unless all features such as firewall, QoS etc... are turned off like Simon has put it, the router could then achieve the 100Mbps WAN throughput. My overall experience with the router is that I had no problem or any issue and would highly recommend this router for a small to medium business. I'm giving this router a 4/5 stars until the WAN throughput bugs has been rectified.
Posted by: Chai 18 Sep 2011
A pretty good router
I put a lot of research into upgrading to this router from my dlink dir-655. I originally upgraded to the Draytek 2830n, but i was not impressed, hard to use and quite honestly my dir-655 was better. Firstly, this Dlink dsr-1000n. looks and feels like a proper business router. I am running 4 wired devices, and about 10 wireless devices, most of which stream hd videos and copy large files. This router didnt even work up a sweat. The range is good, no dead spots. I am running 100mb cable broadband, my only problem was when i first connected this router, i was able to achieve wan speeds of 60mbs. i had to disable most of the firewall features, QoS, VLAN and VPN to get it to download at 100mbs. i never had this problem with my dir-655. the other little gripe i have is that, yes it comes with a load of features and the same web interface as the dir-655, but they have made it slightly tricking to understand and configure. It also doesnt associate the pc names with the ip address :( there are a few little annoyances. What they should have done was kept the exact same web interface as the dir-655 and just added the new features under different sections. I am also suprised that this router is at least £150 more expensive than other routers which are almost as good, makes me wonder if its actually worth spending double just to get a few extra features? Overall this is a top quality router and if money is no object, just get it, you will not be sorry.
Posted by: Simon Evans 01 Sep 2011
Perfect box for small business
This baby provides enterprise features to small offices at almost a home user cost. Its not designed for the clueless user, but it deserves 5 stars for demanding home office or small/medium establishment.
Posted by: CZ 18 Aug 2011