keep or replace 100E

Hello @t1addy ,

To answer quickly, you would be better off buying the 100F because the 100E will end support in August 2026. For this reason, it seems more logical to switch to 100F. However, the end of support date for 100F has not been announced yet. This means that you can use 100F for a minimum of 5 years from now.

Migration between two FortiGate devices is easy. You do not directly download the configuration backup and install it on the other device, but you can easily handle this process via the CLI.

While you will have a newer and more powerful device, you will also extend the support period.

In fact it is cheaper to buy a new 5yr License bundle with a new 100F than to renew licenses for the 100E. That's why we are replacing our 100Es by 100Fs when their licenses expire.

"What to look for when replacing the devices?"

When looking at replacing devices you want to consider at least these two things:

• What types and quantity of interfaces do you need to support of 1G & 10G? The 100F seems to have enough 1G ports to move most ports directly over from a 100E, and a couple of 10G ports if you need to improve your bandwidth at some point.
• What kind of traffic inspection will you be doing and what bandwidth will you need to support? The 100F is rated at 1.6Gbps for intrusion and 800Mbps for firewalling, which is at least twice the performance improvement over the 100E in all categories.

"just switch the cables plus the config-backup and -import?"

It looks like the ports have changed just enough that you might need to tweak some things, depending on what ports you have configured in your policy set on your 100E. But Fortinet does offer a conversion service that you can use to move from one device to another; upload config, map old ports to new ports and download the new configuration. You have to pay for the service though, which is a bummer.

https://www.fortinet.com/products/next-generation-firewall/forticonverter

"How to prove that the 100E is a bottleneck?"

This is an interesting question that needs some additional information. What are you experiencing that makes you think the FG is a bottleneck? If there is a bottle neck it could be because the FG isn't able to do the inspection you have configured in a timely fashion, or it could be that your network is using more bandwidth than your interfaces can support. You can set interface monitors in the dashboard of the FG to see how much traffic is going across your interfaces, and you can also monitor CPU/memory and other metrics from the dashboard as well.

Better still, Fortinet has got a Trade Up program which offers a substantial rebate over the listprice. Replacing a 100E with an 100F will be covered, so I'd get a TradeUp offer from your FTNT dealer of choice.

There is even a suitable replacement in the brand new G series, namely the 90G. It's got way more power, better interface and a longer lifespan than the (mature) 100F. BUT...for a couple of weeks the G series will stay at FortiOS v7.0.15 firmware. If you can live with that, try to get a TradeUp 100E-to-90G and compare prices.

You as a customer have quite a handful of attractive choices at the moment.