Fortigate 80C - 1gbps WAN Connection

[dsnyc]

I have a Fortigate 80C that was factory reset and upgraded to latest 5.2 firmware.

Fortigate was configured with no extra services and only basic firewall rules to allow outgoing traffic and block incoming traffic.

The fortigate is connected to a 1gbps connection on its WAN1 port.

The fortigate 80C is rated for up to 1.3gbps on its WAN port however the max I can get is around 100mbps. I have tried setting the WAN port to 1gbps full duplex and and also auto, and each produces the same result.

Is this firewall not capable of 1gbps WAN speed or is there something possibly misconfigured somewhere or is it the firmware version? I have not tried with earlier firmwares.

Thanks.

[rwpatterson]

From what port are you testing this? The only way to get that full throughput would be to place your testing device on WAN2, since the other ports are only fast Ethernet.

[ede_pfau]

First off, the FG-80C has got 2 GbE ports, wan1 and wan2. I assume you're testing these.

Second, this FGT is a CPU based model. If you look at the datasheet from 2012-03 you see that the throughput is rated as "1900 / 700 / 120 Mpbs" for UDP (!) packet sized 1518, 512 and 64 bytes resp. If the througput is diminishing with smaller packet sizes it's in indication that the FGT does not use an NP ASIC.

So, worst case, you will see a maximum of 120 Mbps of UDP traffic across the WAN ports (not from WAN to LAN as the LAN ports are FE only). Using TCP (like in HTTP), this figure may even be lower.

Which, until recently, would have been ample for a home office or SOHO environment.

Looking at the data of a FG-60D you'll see throughput at wirespeed - NPlite in use.

The upside of a CPU based model is that UTM performance is much higher than on SoC/NPlite models. Only with an additional CP ASIC the UTM performance would be substantially higher, starting at the 100D model.

HTH.