FortiGate 100F

The FortiGate 100F is a 1U rack-mounted next-generation firewall designed for mid-sized branches and small headquarters where the number of wired ports is the deciding factor. According to the official data sheet, IPv4 firewall throughput is 20 / 18 / 10 Gbps with 1518 / 512 / 64 byte UDP packets, IPS throughput is 2.6 Gbps and Threat Protection throughput is 1 Gbps. These three figures come from separate tests; quoting the 2.6 Gbps number as the threat prevention capacity is a frequent mistake.

The 1 Gbps Threat Protection and 1 Gbps SSL inspection ceilings define the appliance's real limit. CyberRatings.org reports that more than 95% of global web traffic is encrypted (CyberRatings.org, 2025); in other words, once full TLS inspection is switched on, the 100F's effective capacity settles at around 1 Gbps. In a branch with 100-250 users this is usually sufficient, but if the circuit exceeds 1 Gbit/s the inspection policy must be defined selectively by category, or you should move up to the next model.

What size of organization is the FortiGate 100F suited to?

The appliance holds 1.5 million concurrent TCP sessions, opens 56,000 new sessions per second and supports 10,000 firewall policies; the VDOM count is 10 by default and 10 at maximum. On the IPsec side it can terminate 2,000 gateway-to-gateway and 16,000 client-to-gateway tunnels. The built-in controller scales to 128 FortiAPs (64 of them in tunnel mode) and 32 FortiSwitches. It comes in a 1U rack form factor (44 x 432 x 254 mm, 3.29 kg), generates 40.4 dBA of noise and draws 35.1 W on average; the FG-101F variant ships with a 480 GB internal SSD.

What is the port layout and 10GE capacity of the FortiGate 100F?

The 100F product code description defines the port layout precisely: 22 GE RJ45 ports (2 WAN, 1 DMZ, 1 management, 2 HA and 16 switch ports, four of which are shared with SFP), 4 GE SFP slots and 2 10GE SFP+ FortiLink slots. In other words, the number of 10 Gigabit interfaces on the device is two, not four, and these are primarily reserved for FortiSwitch connectivity. This detail is critical in uplink design: aggregation plans built on the assumption of four 10GE uplinks cannot be implemented on the 100F.

What is the difference between the FortiGate 100F and the 120G?

The only exception in the table is the port count: the 100F offers four more copper ports than the 120G. Apart from that, the FortiGate 120G leads on every metric; the gap is 2.8x in threat prevention and 3x in IPsec VPN. If the copper port count is not the deciding factor and the missing ports can be covered by a FortiSwitch, the 120G should be preferred in new deployments.

Is the FortiGate 100F still the right choice for new projects?

It pays to be clear on this point: Fortinet no longer publishes an English data sheet for the 100F; the most current official document available to us is the company's own Korean localization (document code FG-100F-DAT-R30-20230227). The model is being superseded by the 120G. Fortinet's product life cycle policy defines 36 months of engineering support from general availability of a FortiOS major release, followed by 18 months of "Must Fix" support (Fortinet Community, 2026). No urgent replacement is required for an existing 100F fleet; however, for new purchases we recommend factoring the appliance's remaining life into the investment decision and comparing it against the 120G. For smaller branches the desktop FortiGate 90G, and for headquarters that need a higher session setup rate the FortiGate 200F, are the alternatives.

How does the FortiOS support calendar affect a 100F investment?

With bulletin CSB-260330-1, Fortinet extended end of support for FortiOS 7.4 to 11 November 2028 and for FortiOS 7.6 to 25 January 2030 (Fortinet Community, 2026). Hardware lifetime and software lifetime must be planned separately: even though the FortiOS support calendar has been extended, the appliance's own life cycle advances independently. The data sheet also does not state which FortiOS version the performance figures were measured on, and qualifies all values as "up to".

As a Fortinet authorized channel partner, Sora Yazılım provides licensing and managed services across the FortiGate firewall family; we also take on configuration migration and successor-model transition projects for 100F fleets in the field. Whether refreshing your existing FortiGate 100F or moving to the successor model is the better call is something we can assess together, based on your current policy count, circuit capacity and port requirements. Get in touch through our contact page for a quote.