Fortinet FortiGate 40F Next-Generation Firewall vs Synology DiskStation DS923+ 4-Bay NAS Enclosure

What separates them

These two differ on 3 recorded specifications. The Synology DiskStation DS923+ 4-Bay NAS Enclosure is $104.99 dearer. They are different kinds of product — network firewall appliance against network attached storage — so read the table as two spec sheets rather than a like-for-like.

Fortinet FortiGate 40F Next-Generation Firewall vs Synology DiskStation DS923+ 4-Bay NAS Enclosure

Fortinet

Fortinet FortiGate 40F Next-Generation Firewall

$495.00

The 5 Gbps firewall figure and the 900 Mbps threat protection figure are the same appliance measured with inspection off and on -- the second number is what a site with security profiles enabled will actually see.

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Synology

Synology DiskStation DS923+ 4-Bay NAS Enclosure

$599.99

Four bays and ECC memory are the two things that separate this from the two-bay units, and ECC is the one that matters for a machine holding the only copy of anything.

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Who the Fortinet FortiGate 40F Next-Generation Firewall is for

Buy it if: Branch offices needing SD-WAN, IPS and web filtering under central FortiManager control.

Avoid it if: Anyone budgeting for the appliance alone -- the subscription is the larger recurring cost.

Who the Synology DiskStation DS923+ 4-Bay NAS Enclosure is for

Buy it if: Offices needing four bays, ECC memory and a route to 10 GbE later.

Avoid it if: Media servers relying on hardware transcoding, which this processor cannot do at all.

Specifications, side by side

3 of 17 rows differ. Differences first.

SpecificationFortinet FortiGate 40F Next-Generation FirewallSynology DiskStation DS923+ 4-Bay NAS Enclosure
Price$495.00$599.99
Annual energy useAbout 105 kWh a year running continuously, roughly $18 at $0.17 per kWhAbout 286 kWh a year running continuously, roughly $49 at $0.17 per kWh
Rated powerAbout 12 W typicalAbout 32.7 W in access, 12.1 W at hibernation
Warranty1-year limited hardware warranty3-year limited warranty
Capacity not published4 bay
Concurrent sessionsAbout 700,000 not published
CoolingFanless not published
Drive bays not published4 x 3.5 inch SATA, diskless
Expansion slots not published2 x M.2 2280 NVMe for cache
Firewall throughput5 Gbps with inspection disabled not published
IPsec VPN throughputAbout 4.4 Gbps not published
Memory not published4 GB DDR4 ECC, expandable to 32 GB
Network ports not published2 x Gigabit Ethernet, 10 GbE via expansion card
Port count5 x Gigabit Ethernet not published
Processor not publishedAMD Ryzen R1600 dual-core 2.6 GHz
RAID levels not publishedBasic, JBOD, RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 and 10
SubscriptionsFortiGuard bundle sold separately and renewed annually not published
Threat protection throughputAbout 900 Mbps with security profiles enabled not published

Every row is a figure one or both products record. A blank is a figure the catalogue does not hold, not a zero.

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