FORTINET FortiGate 30E Network Security/Firewall Appliance

I've been using a couple of generations of Zywalls. The one that this Fortigate replaced was a Zywall USG50 with a ton of features. It was extremely difficult to configure, and it had some flaky bugs. For example we could restore a config, and it would stop responding to just one of the static WAN IPs after about 3 hours. We'd restore the same config - no changes, and sometimes the issue would go away, sometimes not. But the final straw was bandwidth. This remote site was supposed to be getting 60Mbps but the best we ever saw was 50. We chalked that up to the cable company. But then we upped the bandwidth to 110 and it was still 50. The USG 50 is rated at 100Mbps, but when we attached a laptop directly to the modem we saw 112. Horrid. We hooked up the Fortigate and could only ping one of our 4 static WAN IPs. We tripled checked the config and couldn't figure it out, so we filed a ticket with Foritnet. The next morning we had a response, which we responded to. Within 30 minutes we had another response, which we also responded to. Then my phone rang; it was a Fortinet technical support engineer calling me directly to solve the problem. Yes, in 2018! He diagnosed it 10 minutes; reboot the cable modem (thanks Shane). Brain cramp on my part; the cable modem ARP cache had the MAC addresses of the old firewall. Once we did that everything worked perfectly - we had done the config correctly. Running a speed test there was absolutely no change in our speed readings than from connecting directly to the cable modem; 112Mps down and 12Mbps up.. This unit is rated for 950Mbps , so there is a lot of headroom. With great performance and unheard of support, why wouldn't you go with products from this company?

When shopping for a home firewall/router, the FortiGate 30e was an obvious choice for me. We've been deploying these at work, with excellent results. I knew this device would work perfectly with my XFINITY home service too. I hold Fortinet's NSE 4 certification, but you won't need that level of expertise to get it up and running. In fact, it's ridiculously easy: 1) Take out of box, 2) Plug in power, 3) Connect the WAN port to your cable modem, 4) Connect one of the LAN ports to your PC. Voila, it works! Of course, if you want to do other fun stuff like guest wireless access, VPNs, traffic shaping, etc. the FortiGate does all of that perfectly well too. Oh, and Fortinet is a U.S. based company so if you need support, there are no hoops to jump through. It's a solid little box that will last for years.

Great product idea - antivirus protection at the network level, but this does not come with the antivirus software, and getting it is no easy task. Fortinet does not sell the software, you are expected to buy it from a reseller -- at a very high price. You can't just buy it - they want to know how many users you have on your network before quoting a price. The router is very well made, and would be best in a corporate environment where it would protect the network from crazy employees messing up their computers or downloading infected files/software without proper authorization.

I purchased this product to replace an aging firewall. We are very happy with our choice. Per my IT Guy, was easy to set up and works great. Was shipped and delivered as promised.

I had purchased this device and it was delivered with a pre-expired license! Here is the language: Upon checking serial number FGT30E********* that was registered to your account on March 1/2023, I see the device came with 90 day bundled support. However the Ship Date for this device was December/9/2020, and as per Fortinet Policy the Warranty Auto-started 269 days after ship date on September/5/2021 and expired on December/4/2021. Mind you this was sold to me in 2022! So they are selling devices on here that they already do NOT support. I would look for another Firewall manufacturer.

Bought this for home/office use, and couldn't be happier. Love the web filtering, and ability to easily VPN back home when I'm traveling. Can also set up a schedule to kick the XBox off the network at night. Great product. Be aware that you will have to pay for subscriptions to web filtering and anti virus updates.

Tired of constantly getting port scanned, I wanted something better than a consumer grade firewall so I decided to purchase this since we have the more robust version at work. It was easy to setup.... blocked all the crap the internet has become from constantly trying to hack the local LAN. I can now tunnel into an encrypted VPN at home without issue. I haven't had to use support yet but at work when we had to they are great. My next purchase will be their WiFi access points and I can finally say goodbye to the crappy consumer grade access point I currently have.

Unable to access the features. Took over 10 minutes to even begin to boot. Tried to get it working over and over. By the time we determined it does not work, it is too late to return. Horrible product.

perfect product, very fast delivery

Power supply missing, it's a paper weight until a power supply can be sourced

The 30-E arrived well packed and in good working condition. Great unit for home lab, or as a home or small business FW.