Comparison of Fortigate D Series and Fortigate E Series

[Asim_Raza]

Hi,

Can anybody tell me the difference between FortiGate D Series and FortiGate E Series and which one is better in features and performance? Need your kind response as i have to suggest the best Fortigate series to the customer.

Thank You 

[train_wreck · Accepted solution]

I'm not super knowledgeable on the intricacies of the hardware, but the E series is the most recent, and from researching are notably more powerful devices (they have updated processors to better handle AV scanning/SSL decryption. Anecdotal reports are that the D series and below had their performance severely impacted when these features were enabled). Software feature set is I think the same. E devices do not support older firmware trains, if this is an issue for the customer at all then that should be noted.

I'd say go with E series everywhere possible.

[train_wreck · Accepted solution]

I'm not super knowledgeable on the intricacies of the hardware, but the E series is the most recent, and from researching are notably more powerful devices (they have updated processors to better handle AV scanning/SSL decryption. Anecdotal reports are that the D series and below had their performance severely impacted when these features were enabled). Software feature set is I think the same. E devices do not support older firmware trains, if this is an issue for the customer at all then that should be noted.

I'd say go with E series everywhere possible.

[neonbit · Accepted solution]

The E series have the latest generation of content processors which offer faster speeds and more encryption options available to be offloaded to hardware.  They share the same network processors. They also contain an inbuilt hardware true random number generator. I'd always go with the E series over a similar model D one if available.

FYI the E series have NP6 and CP9 and the D series have NP6 and CP8s.

More information on what can be accelerated, what each ASIC does and the amount of ASIC chips available per model can be found in the hardware chapter of the admin guide: https://docs.fortinet.com...re-acceleration-56.pdf