Increasing VPN speed
 

What should I be looking at to try and boost the speed of my home VPN? I've got a fast connection at one end and a decently fast connection at the other, yet file transfer speeds are a pretty consistent 407kB/s. I'm using the built in VPN in my Asus router as the server, and the built in Windows client on the other end.

The router is showing ~15-25% CPU load and 43% RAM load when transferring a file but I don't know how much it will allocate to the VPN connection.

might want to try using pfsense with old computers. I'm using it as a router for the office and works great.
running on 2gb memory and a core2duo cpu
should be faster. but also need to look at your donwload/upload speeds on both sides as one side or the other might be slowing down the speeds.

I've got some old hardware kicking around but I'd prefer to avoid having to add more devices to manage if possible. At home everything is gigabit up to the modem, from there it's 300/15 Mbps. On the receiving end right now it's 40/15Mbps so I would hope to be getting more than ~3Mbps between them (assuming my conversion is correct).

so theoretically you should be getting 1.8MB/s, think my math is correct...
actually is probably around 600-800kb/s so you are close with the speed.

What model is your router? Which VPN service are you using?

Running VPN on a router requires some decent processing power. A dual-core router should be sufficient, but anything less will be slow.

EDIT: Also, in OP, you mentioned you were also using the Windows client for VPN. Since you have VPN on the router, you won't need it on any client computers.

It's an Asus RT-N65U running the built in PPTP VPN. There's the option to run OpenVPN instead but I'm not sure what the difference is.

How do I connect in to a VPN without a client? To clarify I'm connecting from other locations to my home network.

It is redundant and slow to have VPN on the router, and then VPNs on the clients. You're wrapping a VPN connection in another VPN connection.

Setting up the VPN on the router means that any traffic going through it can be protected by the VPN. This means you don't need to install a VPN client on separate devices in your home.

PROS:
Any device connected to the router is protected with the VPN
If VPN provider limits clients, traffic going through the router counts as one client.

CONS:
Connection significantly slower than your subscribed connection
Some sites are block VPNs (ie Netflix)
Can't easily turn VPN on/off


I have my router setup with the VPN from PIA. Since Netflix is not PIA friendly, I configured the router to bypass the VPN for the HTPC.

I'm not running my home network out through an external VPN for privacy, I'm hosting the VPN at my house so I can access my network from a remote location. That's the way VPNs were originally used and the way companies use them.

Sorry. I completely misunderstood.

Have you tried any file transfers between sites, without the VPN?

I can't say I know how to without the VPN between them, I could try pinging public IP and seeing what kind of delay there is between those particular points.

You could try turning off the VPN in the router. Install a FTP on your host computer, and test your throughput at your remote location. If that benchmark gives you the speed you expect, it's probably VPN overhead.