50E/51E

[micahawitt]

Anyone have one of these yet?  Looking to upgrade from a 40C.

A little skeptical with this new line, I don't want another 60C type product on my hands here...

Just looking to see reviews, stable, good, bad, ugly....

[seferkayar · Accepted solution]

cryptochrome wrote:

I've been using a 51E for the last couple of weeks and while I am generally happy, I had a few occasions where the box entered conserve mode. Even though we only have very few users here (less than 5), but we always have between 1000 and 1500 sessions. I am not sure whether this could be a bug in FortiOS 5.4.0 (memory leak?) or whether 2 GB of RAM are just not enough.

Hi

FortiOS 5.4.1 has been released. I see that it is released on 8th June. There is a resolved bug about entering conserve mode as below. It may be your occasion.

Service : FSSO

Bug ID :302908

Smbcd continuously requests for memory; this causes the system to enter conserve mode.

[bartman10 · Accepted solution]

Oook.. Why would you down vote facts! Fact is they shipped a product with a major feature not even working! Screwed me around for months with bullS@##$ gathering logs and playing with level 1-2 support. If you had spent the months fighting with support about this while they make you feel like you are the only one in the world having this problem only to find out they know about it.. you'd maybe have a slightly different opinion of the situation. So yes.. all the while I've got a project in remote office that is behind schedule because I have a defective firewall. Sent back that untested junk and got a 60D.

BTW.. my ticket is still open with support.. let me ping the guy and ask if it's resolved yet. Last time I asked, 5-20, it was still not.

So down vote me all you want! I've come on here as a service to other users to prevent them from having to go through what I went through with FN support. I can't even imagine why anyone would down vote that.. but what ever. 

[cryptochrome]

I've been using a 51E for the last couple of weeks and while I am generally happy, I had a few occasions where the box entered conserve mode. Even though we only have very few users here (less than 5), but we always have between 1000 and 1500 sessions. I am not sure whether this could be a bug in FortiOS 5.4.0 (memory leak?) or whether 2 GB of RAM are just not enough.

[seferkayar · Accepted solution]

cryptochrome wrote:

I've been using a 51E for the last couple of weeks and while I am generally happy, I had a few occasions where the box entered conserve mode. Even though we only have very few users here (less than 5), but we always have between 1000 and 1500 sessions. I am not sure whether this could be a bug in FortiOS 5.4.0 (memory leak?) or whether 2 GB of RAM are just not enough.

Hi

FortiOS 5.4.1 has been released. I see that it is released on 8th June. There is a resolved bug about entering conserve mode as below. It may be your occasion.

Service : FSSO

Bug ID :302908

Smbcd continuously requests for memory; this causes the system to enter conserve mode.

[cryptochrome]

seferkayar wrote:

FortiOS 5.4.1 has been released. I see that it is released on 8th June. There is a resolved bug about entering conserve mode as below. It may be your occasion.

Interesting. Thanks for the heads up, will check it out.

[Paul_S]

bartman10, have you tried 5.4.1 to see if it fixes your WiFi issues?

resolved issue: 365674 - FWF50E/FWF30E hangs when using built-in wireless.

[Paul_S]

I've trying to decide if I should by a 60D, 50E, or 60E. I wish 5.4.x was more stable, then it would be a much easier choice.

[cryptochrome]

5.4 runs pretty solid for me, it's very stable. I had to tweak some of the session settings (keep alive, half open timers etc.) to not run into conserve mode, but I had to do the same on older versions. 

[bartman10]

No I have not tried 5.4.1 as I sent that junk back months ago. I needed a working product.

[bartman10 · Accepted solution]

Oook.. Why would you down vote facts! Fact is they shipped a product with a major feature not even working! Screwed me around for months with bullS@##$ gathering logs and playing with level 1-2 support. If you had spent the months fighting with support about this while they make you feel like you are the only one in the world having this problem only to find out they know about it.. you'd maybe have a slightly different opinion of the situation. So yes.. all the while I've got a project in remote office that is behind schedule because I have a defective firewall. Sent back that untested junk and got a 60D.

BTW.. my ticket is still open with support.. let me ping the guy and ask if it's resolved yet. Last time I asked, 5-20, it was still not.

So down vote me all you want! I've come on here as a service to other users to prevent them from having to go through what I went through with FN support. I can't even imagine why anyone would down vote that.. but what ever. 

[micahawitt · Accepted solution]

I have to agree with bartman10 here.  I find I have slowly been migrating over to Cisco Meraki for what my needs are for my clients.  We could sit here all day and do pros/cons, I feel that Fortinet is releasing things that seem to be more and more flaky. 

It is confusing to me that as a company like Fortinet, I dont need the flashy gui, something normal, yet how is it that with the lines of code, how can you deliver a product that you support all these features, yet seemingly cant have them all on on some products as the hardware will flake out.  Engineer your products to handle it, or have some of the lower models not support it if all it will do is go into conserve mode.

I don't need the flashy gui, I need a working product.

Since I have change one of my clients to full Meraki Solution, VPN times between sites have gone from a 150+ms ping time down to an average of +15-40ms which has made VOIP Cisco phones respond much better.

[cryptochrome]

The Cisco Meraki stuff does look interesting. But comparing it to the FGT50E... just looking at raw performance numbers, I would have to buy one of their high end models to come close to the performance of the low end Fortigates, shelling out much more money in the process.

FGT50E: Firewall throughput 2.5 gbps, IPS throughput 800 mpbs.

Meraki's highest end (!) appliance: Firewall throughput 1 gbps

Correct me if I am wrong.