The Peplink Balance 310 appliance arrived on Friday after an initial missed delivery from FedEx. An internal refresh, the new appliance retains the ability to perform ISP load-balancing between three WAN sources that made the 2xx/3xx series such an ideal product for small and mid-sized businesses looking for an easy to use product. Under-the-hood however, the revised Balance 310 now incorporates a much more powerful processor, bumps up the built-in LAN switch to 4x Gigabit Ethernet, and includes a USB port on the front for connecting a USB-based modem for mobile data access.
I’m not exaggerating on the sheer simplicity of web interface in the Peplink Balance, which is also used by Matt Mullenweg of WordPress for his home office. (Mullenweg did a side-by-side review of three Peplink models here, though as I understand it, his Balance 310 is an older hardware revision)
Key highlights of the Balance 310’s capabilities:
- 100Mbps router throughput
- 7 load balancing algorithms (Weighted, Enforced, Persistence, Priority, Overflow, Least Used, and Lowest Latency Load Balancing Algorithms)
- Site-to-site VPN bonding (2 Peers; 30Mbps bonding VPN throughput)
- PPTP VPN Server (Recommended for 15 VPN users or fewer)
- 1U rackmount capable
- Inbound load balancing
You can find the product comparison page for the various Peplink Balance models here, or read my earlier review of the higher-end Balance 380 multi-WAN router on my ITBusinessEdge SMB Blog.
