I wonder.. 60E to 61E with soldering iron...

[bartman10]

Really like to 60E I've been using. Kind of sad to see FortiNets new direction regarding internal storage.. 

They used to include internal storage.. yes it was the same stuff used in give away USB drives and it died if you enabled logging.. 

So they "fixed" it.. they took it way as standard and came up with new model scheme where you pay extra for the added storage.

Oh.. in the process they also took away many advertised features:

-Local logging

-WAN acceleration (although this was a total joke with such limited CPU and RAM as they included with many models)

-Web Cache - kind of worked when tested.. 

But I digress.. 

On the new 60E I noticed a small panel with a screw.. hmm what's that.. remove cover and find....  the solder joints for where a M.2 SSD module would go. 

Cheep bastards couldn't even give us the bracket and let us add a drive. 

Anyone good with a iron and want to see if it would work? I don't quite have the funds to hang on the line.. but would like to know.

I'd also like to mention my rant again about removing local logging.. and point out the nice USB3 ports on the units.... if only they would enable logging to a USB device.. 

[MikePruett]

They remove everything they can so that they can provide the unit at the cheapest cost possible while still making the necessary margin to remain profitable.

Of course they didn't keep the brackets....the device isn't meant to be hacked up.

I'm not risking a 60E mainly because I suck at soldering but I wouldn't expect anyone else to really want to either. You may be on your own for trying this out.

[SCSIraidGURU]

They all do it except Cisco.   You can upgrade Cisco hardware yourself.    It is maximize profit and minimize quality. 

[FGTuser]

I wonder if it's for Fortinet really worth the hassle to produce 2 versions of the same PCB *0E/*1E with only difference - not soldered M.2 slot. Also producing 2 versions of FortiOS, so I guess even if you managed to solder the slot, disk will not work with *0E FortiOS and you will not load *1E.

Everything just because they want you to buy disk from them and pay premium price for low cost disk worth 30-55$ (end user price), which will break soon anyway.

And absolutely ridiculously you pay much more for UTM as well just because of disk, but performace *0E/*1E is the same.

Now positive things:

- if you don't need disk, it's much cheaper

- if you buy disk version *1E and disk breaks, perhaps they will send you just new disk and you will not have to RMA whole box (hopefully). Or you can quickly throw away the disk and box will work fine (tested). Or replace by yourself cheaper and faster than RMA shipping.

All of this wasn't possible with C/D series, since you would broke the seal and lose warranty. IMHO another ridiculous thing...you can open Cisco and replace what you need, no warranty void seal. 

[SCSIraidGURU]

$125 more for 61E over 60E. 

[FGTuser]

I see list price +244€ for 61E vs 60E.

List price for SSD used in 61E is about 55$=50€

But yes, US list price difference seems to be 150$...interesting..

[simonorch]

I can live without local logging, but without packet capture i feel almost blind and no the cli sniffer isn't just as good.

[FGTuser]

simonorch wrote:

I can live without local logging, but without packet capture i feel almost blind and no the cli sniffer isn't just as good.

Packet capture doesn't work without disk?

Thought it's captured to RAM due to 10k packet limit.

[simonorch]

it was 'removed' in 5.2 on the small units but you could still use it using <IP>/p/firewall/sniffer then it seems to have been completely removed or 'locked' in 5.4  .....unless someone has found a way to get it to work?

it's not even available in the 400D using 5.4.....

[Carl_Wallmark]

On my 100D running 5.4.2 I still have Packet Capture.