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Why do VPNs deteriorate my download speeds so much? And how can I make them faster?
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Why do VPNs deteriorate my download speeds so much? And how can I make them faster?

thistlethistle Member
edited December 2016 in Help

Currently I have a 30MB/s download speed at home in the UK. I have tried NordVPN, PIA, cryptostorm, a VPS with openvpn in the UK (100mbit/s) and a 1gbit/s VPS with openvpn in USA. Not one has ever reached a download speed of over 3MB/s. The closest I have got is 2.7MB/s with a VPN from PIA. Surely there is a way to setup or buy a VPN that doesn't perform at 10% of the speeds?! Please help me out.

Please bare in mind I am not saying hypothetically I get 30MB/s from my ISP and I am doing VPN speed tests from my back garden with an old Dell. I first tested with an ethernet cable to the router without the VPN and then with.

Comments

  • ClouviderClouvider Member, Patron Provider

    What's your download speed from a VPN server without a VPN service running ?

    Who is your ISP if you don't mind me asking ?

  • How about the hardware you're running the VPN software on? Is it capable of those speeds?

    Thanked by 2Clouvider netomx
  • Here in the US, speedtest are not very reliable. The owners of the speedtest servers are usually your ISP. They will only tell you your speed between your home and your ISP. They are not the best option for real world testing.

    Since you mentioned you have a vps, you could try a speed test between the VPS and your home using iperf. You can google it and find many articles on it. If you cannot max out your internet speed, you can stop there and blame the vps provider or your connection between your home and vps provider. If this is the case, I would run an MTR between your VPS and your home (google is your friend here) and submit the results to your VPS provider in a ticket. They may be able to offer help.

    Another interesting thing to try is with the vpn config. Make sure you are using UDP and a non standard port. I could not connect to a VPN I once had because it was trying to do so over the standard port and my ISP was blocking it (I assume since they would not admit to doing so). Change the port to some random port on the server and update your client with that new port and try again. I also would run the VPN client on the computer and not on the router (if that is what you are doing) Some routers can't handle the amount of CPU required for always on VPN plus the normal nat-ing/routing they normally do.

    I am in the US and can connect to AirVPN in the Netherlands and get about 65mbps on any random server so I don't see an obvious technical reason why you can't max out your 30mbps connection.

    Hope this helps!!

  • thistlethistle Member
    edited December 2016

    @bloke thank you for such an in depth reply!

    I tried iperf on a few different gigabit servers and they all returned ruffly the same thing:

    [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth

    [ 5] 0.0-10.1 sec 7.12 MBytes 5.56 Mbits/sec

    Does that look okay? To me that looks absolutely awful haha! Okay will try all those things thank you :)

  • Is it byte vs bit?

  • What do you mean?

  • SpartanHostSpartanHost Member, Host Rep

    @thistle said:
    What do you mean?

    I assume they're asking if when you say MB e.g. 30MB, do you mean megabytes or bits.

  • thistlethistle Member
    edited December 2016

    @SpartanHost said:

    @thistle said:
    What do you mean?

    I assume they're asking if when you say MB e.g. 30MB, do you mean megabytes or bits.

    Okay. I have done mbit when i mean megabit and MB when I mean megabyte :)

  • mik997mik997 Member
    edited December 2016

    @thistle said:

    without VPN

    with VPN

    OVH VPS running OpenVPN 2.3.10

    which provider did you use for your VPS?
    how did you configure OpenVPN?

  • layclayc Member
    edited December 2016

    You should try hosting your own VPN server. Try different VPS providers and you will find a good solution. I've got a small 128mb vps for less than $1/m and my UP/DOWN is way better with the VPN. It's increased my download by 5 Mbps and my upload by ~4 Mbps sometimes even more.

    I'm from germany, got a vps from noez, aruba and signaltransmitter (all different locations within germany) and they all cause different speeds.

    The screenshot shows your VPN is in france. You should get one within UK to get a better UP/DOWN.

    I'd go with @AnthonySmith - inceptionhosting.com ... They are recommendable

  • @Zen said:
    1. Different routing
    2. Encryption
    3. Throttling on the VPN side

    And probably a few more factors :)

    90% speed is getting lost due to routing. At least when you doing Server->ISP Customer. If you use vpn between Server->Server it will mostly have a good fast connection. I just recently found an Amsterdam Server which is actually more far away than Hamburg/Frankfurt Servers but I am getting 20ms there. The traceroute log is also pretty good around 8-9 Hops. The connection is also pretty good. I am downloading with 8-9mb/s (got 100mbit) so pretty good actually. The Server got a shared 1gbit port but I also have some other servers with 1gbit and they are like 2-3mb/s maximum because of dumb routings... Also some peering nodes gonna slow your connection down.

  • @mik997 said:

    @thistle said:

    without VPN

    with VPN

    OVH VPS running OpenVPN 2.3.10

    which provider did you use for your VPS?
    how did you configure OpenVPN?

    That's seems just fine to me.. No real big differences, it's called overhead.

    Thanked by 1mik997
  • @joodle said:
    That's seems just fine to me.. No real big differences, it's called overhead.

    ermm yep - I was trying to illustrate the performance benefits of self-hosted VPN to the OP .. ;)

    Thanked by 1BlazeMuis
  • thistlethistle Member
    edited December 2016

    @layc said:
    You should try hosting your own VPN server. Try different VPS providers and you will find a good solution. I've got a small 128mb vps for less than $1/m and my UP/DOWN is way better with the VPN. It's increased my download by 5 Mbps and my upload by ~4 Mbps sometimes even more.

    I'm from germany, got a vps from noez, aruba and signaltransmitter (all different locations within germany) and they all cause different speeds.

    The screenshot shows your VPN is in france. You should get one within UK to get a better UP/DOWN.

    I'd go with @AnthonySmith - inceptionhosting.com ... They are recommendable

    I have been doing - check my question. A PIA VPN in the UK gives faster speeds than a gigabit VPS I own in America which seems rediculous (check the speeds above) and also a 100megabit/s VPS in the UK!!

  • Ups sorry, I think I missunderstood or missread something.

    Did you tried connecting via TCP once? Back in the days I was living in a dorm and my internet connection was restricted I used a VPN but UDP was blocked so I used TCP and it worked fine + my speed was way better.

  • VPNs are slower for multiple reasons.

    1) Encryption is computationally expensive, and it requires lots of entropy. This is why high throughput VPNs will run on baremetal with a crypto accelerator in the server. Procs with the AES-NI extension help reduce the load, but there is still a load.

    2) Not all VPNs are the same; some have more overhead. SSL based VPNs are slower then IPSec VPNs because the add another layer on top of the regular IP stack, and IPSec is faster because it is part of the network stack. (It's been a while, and I'm a little fuzzy on the exact specifics.) Less layers means better performance.

    3) Generic x86 hardware isn't going to be as fast as dedicated network gear. Network gear has special hardware to be able to switch at line speed, and you're not going to get that with commodity hardware. Commodity hardware is really good, but it's not going to compare to dedicated network gear.

    4) There is a lot of magic that happens on the Internet. A lot of effort goes into caching and making sure content is close to the end user, and by using a VPN, you're adding a network hop and pushing the content farther away from you. Networks are fast, but they are still subject to the laws of physics. They can only travel so far so fast which is why CDNs and geo-balanced DNS are things.

    All of this has the effect of reducing throughput, and the VPN is only going to be as fast as the slowest component.

  • I can help you optimize OpenVPN client for sure. But it depends on distance from the server and crypto support of the hardware its running on, for example AES-NI.

    Also I would recommend you to try AzireVPN, if you seek US/UK/SE. Private message me for more help :D

  • i've got the same problems. have to decide if i want a low ping or high transfer rates. tcp or udp. depending on my choice i get either 10mbit or 100mbit throughput

  • So you are using openvpn on your router and locally you achieved 30MB/s which is 240Mbits/s ?

    I don't think you can get 240Mbits/s on regular AC routers today. For example my asus ac-56u can give 50-60 Mbits/s with openvpn using aes128-cbc encryption.

    On the other hand, I get 18Mbit on speedtests via netgear r6300, but when I download something from my server via https, using one connection (openvpn enabled on router, both openvpn and download content on same server) I get much more than 18Mbit, I get like 70mbit/s.

  • I have to say I don't notice such a big difference on my VPN,

    Mys speed from isp is 20down/3up and when connected to VPN the funny thing is that I get 24down/3up.

    However, its hosted on our VPS in London so the ping between the server and me is good as it so close.

  • Local routes caps limitations

    That thing because Chinese user never get 1Gbps inside country from everywhere as desires

  • @muratai said:
    So you are using openvpn on your router and locally you achieved 30MB/s which is 240Mbits/s ?

    I don't think you can get 240Mbits/s on regular AC routers today. For example my asus ac-56u can give 50-60 Mbits/s with openvpn using aes128-cbc encryption.

    On the other hand, I get 18Mbit on speedtests via netgear r6300, but when I download something from my server via https, using one connection (openvpn enabled on router, both openvpn and download content on same server) I get much more than 18Mbit, I get like 70mbit/s.

    The maximum that I've ever pushed with my OpenVPN setup was 94mbit/s from Toronto to NY.

  • Note for users of PIA: Ive found if you change the port when connecting to PIA there can be a significant speed difference (huge! like from 20mbps to 130mbps near instantly on the same server just with a different port).

  • UrDNUrDN Member
    edited January 2017

    You are making "speedtests" which are opening several TCP connections and use HTTP.

    The VPN is likely using UDP with a single connection.

    The first thing to do is to make sure that you have a real access to the Internet, that your operator respects neutrality and has proper routing and peering policies.

    To do this you will also have to have a proper installation on your end to perform the tests.

  • try hetzner i have 3 dedicated with them and my speed it 1000mb/s full
    this is my site
    تحميل اغاني

  • Neil_HinesNeil_Hines Member
    edited April 2017

    Honestly speaking, there are a plethora of reasons that could be affecting your internet speed. From your router to your internet connection, to the encryption settings you've selected for your VPN connection, the server you are connected to etc. I mean to say there is no single point which you can state as a culprit when it comes to slow internet speed. You can check a thorough analysis, comparisons, and factors of different high speed VPNs and go through each and every point to see if there's a need for a manual setting or there are some tweaks to be made in your current VPN settings or even change it altogether.

  • Stop ressurecting old threads if you want to be welcome here. @Neil_Hines

  • @luissousa said:
    Stop ressurecting old threads if you want to be welcome here. @Neil_Hines

    I sincerely apologize, @luissousa I'll take care of it from next time. Just trying to be a productive community member. Thanks for the intimation, will keep that in mind. Peace.

  • @Neil_Hines We love contributors and it's definitely good to see someone new wanting to contribute, just try not to ressurect unless you're adding something extremely good to the thread :P

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