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I've set up a site to site VPN between two locations that are roughly 15 miles apart. Each site has a single 35/5 TWC cable connection. There are no domain controllers. Clients are all Win7 or newer. The VPN routers are Cisco (linksys, not IOS) RV042 with latest firmware. Site1 hosts files via a decent synology NAS. Actions that access files on the NAS which take a few seconds at Site1 may take a minute or more at Site2, and often time out entirely. I would expect a noticeable slow down from Site2, but at times it's simply untenable. I'm asking for a sanity check on whether or not this is to be expected. This is the only VPN I've ever worked with, so I have no frame of reference by which to compare performance. I'm open to any suggestions on how to improve the connection between the two sites. What would be ideal vs what would be a budget-friendly compromise? Thanks!
What is the ping between the two sites without the VPN active, and what is the ping through the VPN? – ChrisInEdmonton – 2015-10-21T14:25:08.027
Ping with VPN is about 68 with active traffic running between the two sites. I can't disable the VPN during business hours, so I'll post back later with the non-VPN ping. – 13ruce – 2015-10-21T14:52:36.513
Additional info: There are usually about 15 users at Site1 and only about 2-3 at Site2. We use a relatively bandwidth-hungry job management app as well. We also use VoIP phones. VoIP traffic doesn't need to use the VPN, but VoIP traffic is set to high priority on the WAN ports of each router. – 13ruce – 2015-10-21T14:58:07.967
In the morning, with low traffic the ping to from Site1 to Site2 is in the low 30's. With the VPN off, the ping seems entirely unchanged. – 13ruce – 2015-10-22T11:51:26.230
Can you clarify if the VPN is routing only traffic for Site1 or acting as the default gateway for site two? SMB/CIFS are pretty bloated protocols. Another pretty vital check to perform is that the VPN is UDP not TCP. – Linef4ult – 2015-10-26T09:18:22.590
It's a gateway to gateway VPN with identical routers running mirrored configs on each end. Bear with me, as a have only a loose grasp on this, but since it's a workgroup environment, are there any other options than SMB? Also, I'm not seeing any way to affect the use of UDP vs TCP. I understand the difference, but I don't see where to change it in the VPN settings after looking into it. – 13ruce – 2015-10-27T11:48:06.207