I have to admit I had very high hopes for these routers. They were billed as top quality highly functional routers. On paper they sound great, but in practice I found them to be a great disappointment. Key areas of concern...
1) Lack of DHCP/DNS integration. Although not documented very many routers these days include dynamic updates to the internal DNS server from the DHCP server. Frequently these are based on the great dnsmasq tool. The lack of this basic feature instantly requires us to deploy an additional server at each location.
2) Patchy USB support. It seems the size and model of supported devices is limited and poorly documented. Again, this will require an additional server.
3) Dubious DHCP server implementation. Both in our labs and at test sites we are repeatedly finding the DHCP server is allocation the same address to multiple devices.
4) Dubious DHCP server implementation. A number of clients are failing to configure via DHCP. Tracing shows the DHCP server offers an IP address, but when the client attempts to confirm the same IP address the 2830 responds with a DHCPNAK
5) PDF documentation and labels on configuration pages vary from obscure and misleading to incomplete or incorrect. It would appear they have been written in some other language by a technical person and then poorly translated into English.
6) Whilst there are what appear to be very powerful features to match traffic based on IP address or protocol it seems there are limited actions you can take with the identified packets. For example you can't then use these to influence routing or assign them to a VLAN etc.
7) The web interface would appear to be one that has "evolved" rather than has been designed and developed.
It really does feel like this product hasn't been finished yet.

To its credit though, from our experience it is providing rock solid VPN connections, but then so do various other routers that cost considerably less.

I know I'm never going to see any these issues resolved on the 2830s probably because they present too many technical challenges, and don't justify they cost. But please if nothing else, please get your documentation updated, and include a list of supported USB drives.

I'd certainly say that some of the earlier nos. on your list are worth reporting if you think the service just isn't implemented properly, but be specific in your report to DrayTek.

Documentation does seem very poor across the range. I have needed to do a lot of "suck it and see" for my 3200 so you arent alone.

kk20 wrote: Documentation does seem very poor across the range. I have needed to do a lot of "suck it and see" for my 3200 so you arent alone.

I have had a 3200 since February. I'm unable to get VPN working with a 2920 or another slightly older Draytek. Have you tried IPsec?

I've done some more digging into the DHCP issues. It seems that the router only checks its internal tables to verify if an address is available before it allocates. This scenario recreates the issue.

Turn router on
Turn device A on (allocated address 192.168.1.2)
Turn device A off
Reboot router
Turn device B on (allocated address 192.168.1.2)
Reboot router
Turn device A on
device A will request its old address first (192.168.1.2)
router checks tables which are empty following reboot, and offers 192.168.1.2
router adds the device A to dhcp table with 192.168.1.2
device A requests confirmation of address 192.168.1.2
router responds with NAK. Can only assume its finally tried to ping the address and realised that there is already a device using it
device A requests new address
router reviews dhcp table, matches device A and returns 192.168.1.2
device A requests confirmation of address 192.168.1.2
router responds with NAK
... repeat ... repeat ... repeat ....

More strange stability issues. Spotted this in out test labs and at two of out test sites.

Initial symptoms are poor performance. Initial investigations highlight DNS issues with 10-15 second response times per query. This has been noticed in a variety of configurations, either going direct to ISP DNS servers or using the 2830 as a DNS proxy. More detail investigations show packet loss. tcpdump shows the outbound client requests heading for the the router. Monitoring a DNS server we have on the internet we are confirm there are no inbound requests from the router in question.
More digging and it appears that its not limited to DNS queries. It seems that all comms in the first 10-15 seconds of a particular session can be lost.
Swapping out the 2830 for an old Westell and everything is back to normal Back to the 2830 and a reset to factory defaults and a reboot doesn't fix anything. However a power cycle does seem to clear things up. We tried a power cycle at the two test locations experiencing the same issue and it seemed to resolve the issue.

Admittedly we are testing, so we are working through a number of scenarios and configurations but even so, its disappointing to see such a degree of instability in what I would classify as a core feature.

Oh well.