Improving performance over a VPN

[79wjd]

I have a FreeNAS server at home that I'd like to remote connect to through a VPN hosted on my router, and I was wondering if there is a way to improve the performance of it... 

 

I have 50/50Mbps at both ends, however when I connect to the VPN my connection drops to 5-10/5-10Mbps. And when I try to access the server it takes forever to load the folders and their contents. Ideally I would like to be able to stream content off the drive (assume a 1GB per hour of video in terms of what I want to stream). 

 

Is there anything I can do to increase access speeds through the VPN? And shouldn't 5Mbps be sufficient to watch a 1 hour 1GB movie? (1GB movie, 1000MB/60s = 16MB/1M = .27MB/s = 2~Mbps) 

[Naeaes]

I don't have a solution for you but it could be beneficial to know whether the VPN affects your ping time too. I'm thinking, with VPN on, the connection could be routed differently. Also, encryption will definitely play a part in the speed. I couldn't find data on how much, but I'd find out by turning it off altogether and then testing. 

[79wjd]

I don't have a solution for you but it could be beneficial to know whether the VPN affects your ping time too. I'm thinking, with VPN on, the connection could be routed differently. Also, encryption will definitely play a part in the speed. I couldn't find data on how much, but I'd find out by turning it off altogether and then testing. 

It definitely does affect my ping, but I feel like that shouldn't cause the severe issues that it's causing. I could forsee the high ping times making streaming difficult, but I can't even open a folder and have all the contents of the folder load. Hell, I can't even manage to open a picture off the server. 

 

Pinging google with VPN off: 

 

Pinging google with the VPN active: 

 

Pinging my home network with the VPN active: 

[Naeaes]

Yeah, It shouldn't do that. 100ms or so isn't that much. Hope you figure it out.

[unijab]

Do you have a network diagram?

Is the VPN virtual or on it's own hardware?

[79wjd]

Do you have a network diagram?

Is the VPN virtual or on it's own hardware?

It's running on my Asus AC68u. 

 

As in the set up of both networks? I have my home networks on 192.168.20.x (where the VPN/the server is), and my school network where I'm at now (192.168.1.x) VPN'g into my home network. 

[79wjd]

bump

[79wjd]

I turned off Encryption Cipher and I'm now able to open up a video in Quicktime Player (VLC still doesn't seem to be able to open any videos -- it goes unresponsive). However, the video is extremely choppy....lows of 0 FPS up to 5fps. (My current speed test is 82ms, 11Mbps down, 9Mbps up. 

[Blake]

Just to confirm your pictures above:

1. Pinging google through local gateway

2. Pinging google through local gateway, then VPN endpoint.

3. Must be pinging a local system by local gateway -> vpn gateway -> local gateway -> local network devices ?

 

Also see below in RED

 

I have 50/50Mbps at both ends, however when I connect to the VPN my connection drops to 5-10/5-10Mbps. The other end of the VPN may be limiting your connection speed, what is your VPN service?

 

And when I try to access the server it takes forever to load the folders and their contents. Ideally I would like to be able to stream content off the drive (assume a 1GB per hour of video in terms of what I want to stream). 

 

Is there anything I can do to increase access speeds through the VPN? And shouldn't 5Mbps be sufficient to watch a 1 hour 1GB movie? (1GB movie, 1000MB/60s = 16MB/1M = .27MB/s = 2~Mbps) 

 

Try using a service like plex to auto encode the stream based on bandwidth.

[79wjd]

Just to confirm your pictures above:

1. Pinging google through local gateway

2. Pinging google through local gateway, then VPN endpoint.

3. Must be pinging a local system by local gateway -> vpn gateway -> local gateway -> local network devices ?

 

Also see below in RED

Yep, I was pinging my home router (I also pinged my home server and got similar results). 

 

I'm using openVPN, which is running off my Asus AC68u router. As for Plex, I tried that, but there's apparently a firewall that's blocking it even though I've disabled every firewall that could possibly be between the two.