I’m trying to figure out why my download speeds in download station on my DS720+ are slow when I connect to a VPN. I have NordVPN configured as a openvpn. My internet speed is 200 Mbps down and 15Mbps up. When I have the VPN off, my download speeds are 20-25MBps. When the VPN is on, my download speed will not go past 4MBps. I checked download limits on the user and nothing is set.
OpenVPN is slow and nas is probably slow. I had vpn on my 920+ but found it was too slow. So I am now running the vpn on my opnsenes firewall box. my connection is 1g up and down. on vpn i get about 600ish up and down PIA as the vpn provider.
There’s a good chance your VPN service is rate limiting your connection intentionally. You should check the fine print of your service agreement to see if they state rate limiting or speed throttling.
Test over ssh then compare the speeds, I always preferred spinning up a vps on vultr for 3 bucks and installing openvpn on that. Nobody looking, faster aswell edit/ the free version allows 2 connections but I routed the vpn through my router and that solved it
I have a DS716+ and use NordVPN also. I have Fios 300/300 and my Download Station speeds are very good with VPN. I would suggest trying a different Nord sever, try one close to your location, and see if your download speeds improve.
I use NordVPN with TransmissionVPN container and easily maxing out my connection of 200mbps.
Let me know if you are interested and I can post some links and tips on how to set it up.
That’s just VPN. I set up VPN on my Omada router and speeds go from 300/300 so around 30-40. If you are running OpenVPN on your Synology, it’s probably even slower. It’s not business-level VPN hardware, but enough to connect to home to get to something you need.
Are you sure port forwarding on NordVPN is configured correctly?
Nord specifically states that they never reduce or throttle speeds. If I connect on my PC and do any downloads, the speed difference in minimal.
Are there any alternatives I can run on the NAS?
No it is not you just have to know how to configure it. Yes it has bigger overhead but it is not slow.
Is this all set up on the NAS? I might be interested in trying this.
Was not aware of any port forwarding required. Maybe this is my issue. Do I need to port forward on the NAS or my router? The firewall is currently off on the NAS.
Potentially you could find a container that has Wireguard built in if your VPN service supports that. Synology’s OpenVPN implementation might also be slower than normal. The more typical thing people do on this sub is a run a docker container that is both OpenVPN access + torrent client in one. Plenty of past threads to refer to on that one
Personally I don’t care about the performance via VPN. I only use a VPN for public torrent sites which I use much less than private sites. For those public sites the seeding situation is rarely ideal anyway so I start the download and forget about it and come back the next day.
Yep my friend. All on NAS. Ultra easy to manage and VPN is only servicing TransmissionVPN, which is the way to do it.
It is set and forget :). It is only for torrenting tough but it is really good for it 
You’ll need to port forward on your VPN provider (not locally on your router). Unfortunately, I never used NordVPN so I don’t know how or if it’s possible with them. Quick searching and the results say they don’t support it. Try to see if it’s any different when logged in to Nord.
Just to give you an idea, here’s Mullvad’s:
https://mullvad.net/en/help/port-forwarding-and-mullvad/
And an explanation of why it matters:
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll look into this stuff and see what works best for me.
I just set up ExpressVPN in a docker container, and it works incredibly well. Good speeds and it’s easy to add containers to the VPN’s container, so you can have more than one application covered by the VPN.
That sounds like a good idea to try. I want to be able to only configure it on the NAS so I don’t have to configure the router and mess anything else up. I’ll mainly be using it for torrents anyway so this might work well for what I need.
Got any guidance on how to do this? I tried looking online a bit and did not see much that would help. I’m not the greatest at configuring networks, but I can usually stumble my way through.
I will try to post some links tonight. One important thing to keep in mind is that it works so if you run into trouble with configuration just ask and I should be able to help.