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Your firewall is the throttle: a 20 Gbps FortiGate inspects 1 Gbps

FortiGate 100F datasheet throughput with each security engine switched on, where traffic shaping lives, and the Indian price and log rules, as of September 2026.

Illustration: The TechBag Journal

The 2024 version of this piece defined bandwidth throttling and listed monitoring tools by type. The question behind it is practical: the office link feels slow, so should you cap users, buy a bigger line, or buy a monitoring product? Usually none of the three comes first.

01Shape by application, after you have looked

Shaping lives in the firewall. Fortinet’s FortiOS 7.4 administration guide covers traffic shaping policies, shaping profiles with queuing, shared and per-IP traffic shapers, global prioritisation and DSCP marking.1 The order that works: read the flow data first, then guarantee bandwidth to voice and the ERP, push backups and updates into a capped class, and keep per-IP caps for guest Wi-Fi. Flow data (NetFlow, sFlow) shows who is using the link; ManageEngine sells it as the NetFlow Analyzer add-on to OpManager.2

Two claims from the 2024 version are dropped. Throttling does not add security: a shaper decides how fast traffic moves, not whether it is malicious, which is the job of the inspection engines below. And it rarely defers an upgrade for long: if the business-critical class is starved at peak after shaping, the line or the box is too small, and the flow data will show which.

02The throttle nobody configured

Every firewall datasheet leads with a figure measured with inspection off. Turn the security engines on and the ceiling falls.

Switch on threat protection and a 20 Gbps FortiGate 100F carries 1 Gbps, a twentieth of its headline

FortiGate 100F throughput in Gbps by security engines enabled, datasheet figures as published to September 2026

Firewall only 1518-byte UDP20 Gbps
Intrusion prevention2.6 Gbps
NGFW IPS + application control1.6 Gbps
Threat protection adds malware protection1 Gbps
SSL inspection1 Gbps
Table view
Value (Gbps)
Firewall only20
Intrusion prevention2.6
NGFW1.6
Threat protection1
SSL inspection1

Source: Fortinet FortiGate 100F datasheet figures as listed by NetworkTigers; firewall figure confirmed by Cloudfy Systems · as of 30 September 2026 · Fortinet's figures use its enterprise traffic mix; your mix will differ

03Cost and rules in India

An Indian reseller prices the 100F at about ₹60,000 for the hardware and ₹25,000 a year for the Unified Threat Protection bundle, hardware before GST; add 18% GST and the first year is roughly ₹1,00,300.4 Shaping is part of FortiOS, the operating system the box already runs. CERT-In’s Directions of 28 April 2022 require logs of all ICT systems, firewall logs included, to be kept for 180 days within Indian jurisdiction.5

Sources

  1. Fortinet, FortiOS 7.4.0 Administration Guide: Traffic shaping (policies, profiles, shared and per-IP shapers, DSCP) — undated documentation page
  2. TechBag, ManageEngine OpManager intel page (NetFlow Analyzer add-on, per-device pricing) — version of 30 September 2026
  3. NetworkTigers, Fortinet FG-100F listing (datasheet throughput: firewall, IPS, NGFW, threat protection, SSL inspection) — undated listing
  4. Cloudfy Systems, Fortinet FortiGate pricing in India (100F hardware and UTP bundle; 20 Gbps firewall) — 11 June 2026
  5. CERT-In, Directions under section 70B(6) of the IT Act, 2000 (180 days of logs within Indian jurisdiction) — 28 April 2022

Related on TechBag: the firewall guide compares inspected throughput across vendors; the OpManager page covers flow monitoring.

Disclosure. TechBag is a software reseller: it earns a margin when a reader buys through it, including from vendors named here. The analysis is TechBag’s own; no vendor paid for or saw this piece before publication. Facts are labelled reported, TechBag count or our view.