Just did my first runs with the DNS Benchmark and I think it’s flushed out a problem with my network, but I could do with the group’s advice.
In my router (a Netgear Nighthawk X4 R7500) I had the DNS servers set to Google’s public DNS, which at the time that I set it, I think the old DNS benchmark told me that was the best option. However, when I run the benchmark today, Google doesn’t fare so well. So I changed it to one of the ones very near the top of my list (Cisco) and ran again.
With Cisco, the red part of the benchmark (cached results) looks the same whether it’s coming from my router or whether it’s coming from Cisco (as you would expect). However, the green and purple bars are much worse when they’re coming out of the router compared to going directly to Cisco.
The obvious fix is to tell each of the devices in my network to use the Cisco DNS directly. But that’s no fun, I have a ton of devices and I keep adding more. It would be very tedious to configure every device. It’s much easier to have the router just hand out the DNS settings so I can manage it in one place.
I assume that the problem is that the router is simply slow to process these out of cache requests. That would make sense. Although when I bought the router it was considered high-end, that was years ago and things move on, and it may now be ready to be replaced.
If you think I am reading that correctly, what would you recommend as a suitable replacement?
Some considerations: this is not the only router in my network. I use Steve’s classic Y configuration with three routers (although the router we are talking about here has the DNS settings codes in directly, rather than getting them from one higher up the chain). Also, the routers are only used for Ethernet connections, the wireless stuff is all done with a mesh network (the testing above was only done via Ethernet). I have a gigabit connection to the outside world, and there’s a chance that the ISPs around here will give me something much faster in times to come. So, if I replace that router, I need something that can cope with the higher speeds. In the past I’ve seen routers that can cope with high speeds within the network, but don’t make full use of high speeds on the feed from the Internet. So I don’t want to fall down that trap.
What do you think team?
In my router (a Netgear Nighthawk X4 R7500) I had the DNS servers set to Google’s public DNS, which at the time that I set it, I think the old DNS benchmark told me that was the best option. However, when I run the benchmark today, Google doesn’t fare so well. So I changed it to one of the ones very near the top of my list (Cisco) and ran again.
With Cisco, the red part of the benchmark (cached results) looks the same whether it’s coming from my router or whether it’s coming from Cisco (as you would expect). However, the green and purple bars are much worse when they’re coming out of the router compared to going directly to Cisco.
The obvious fix is to tell each of the devices in my network to use the Cisco DNS directly. But that’s no fun, I have a ton of devices and I keep adding more. It would be very tedious to configure every device. It’s much easier to have the router just hand out the DNS settings so I can manage it in one place.
I assume that the problem is that the router is simply slow to process these out of cache requests. That would make sense. Although when I bought the router it was considered high-end, that was years ago and things move on, and it may now be ready to be replaced.
If you think I am reading that correctly, what would you recommend as a suitable replacement?
Some considerations: this is not the only router in my network. I use Steve’s classic Y configuration with three routers (although the router we are talking about here has the DNS settings codes in directly, rather than getting them from one higher up the chain). Also, the routers are only used for Ethernet connections, the wireless stuff is all done with a mesh network (the testing above was only done via Ethernet). I have a gigabit connection to the outside world, and there’s a chance that the ISPs around here will give me something much faster in times to come. So, if I replace that router, I need something that can cope with the higher speeds. In the past I’ve seen routers that can cope with high speeds within the network, but don’t make full use of high speeds on the feed from the Internet. So I don’t want to fall down that trap.
What do you think team?
