LAN & WAN Reviews

Introduction

I've had the opportunity to review several TP-LINK products, including their TL-ER6020 Dual-WAN VPN Router and the TL-SG2216 Smart Switch. Prior to reviewing these two products, I hadn't heard of TP-LINK, so I was intrigued to read their goal is to become "one of the top 3 networking brands in the world ..." That's certainly a bold goal. At the conclusion of both of those reviews, I found no reason TP-LINK couldn't reach that goal. Both of those products performed well and are competitively priced.

In this review, I'm going to look at another of TP-LINK's VPN routers, the TL-R600VPN SafeStream Gigabit Broadband VPN Router. A look at TP-LINK's product page lists three models of VPN "SafeStream" routers, including the top-end TL-ER6120, mid-range TL-ER6020 and entry-level (and best selling) TL-R600VPN.

The TL-R600VPN is a desktop router measuring 8.2"L x 4.9"W x 1.0"H. Adhesive rubber feet are included for desktop use. I love the fact that the TL-R600VPN is silent and has an internal power supply. The internal power supply means no external power brick, just a cord from the router to the outlet. Very nice! Further, the power supplies on all TP-LINK SafeStream VPN routers include "professional lightning protection," designed to withstand an electrical surge up to 4KV.

TP-LINK TL-R600VPN Front

As shown in the below front and rear shots, the LEDs are on the front panel while the RJ45 ports and power connector are on the back.

TP-LINK TL-R600VPN Rear

Under the Covers

The TL-R600VPN runs on a Realtek RTL-8198-GR ASIC which serves as both the router's CPU and Ethernet controller. It also has 8 MB of Flash and 64 MB of RAM.

Below is photo of the TL-R600VPN's main board. The power components are under the small panel to the left and the Realtek chip is in the center of the board. Note the lack of heatsinks.

Main Board

Features

Here's a quick summary of the TL-R600VPN's features.

Router

• (4) 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN ports, (1) 10/100/1000 Ethernet WAN ports
• NAT Throughput = 120 Mbps
• Concurrent Sessions = 10,000
• Bandwidth control
• Dynamic DNS

SPI Firewall

• DoS Protection (TCP/UDP/ICMP Flooding and Ping of Death)
• IP/MAC/Domain Filtering
• ALG (FTP/TFTP/H.323/RTSP)
• Port Forwarding, Port Triggering, DMZ
• IP/MAC/Domain Name Filtering

VPN

• (20) IPSec Tunnels and (16) PPTP Tunnels
• IPSec: DES/3DES/AES128/AES192/AES256 Encryption, MD5/SHA-1 Authentication
• IPSec Throughput = 20 Mbps