Fortinet FortiGate 400E-BYPASS Firewall, Hardware Only (FG-400E-BYPASS)

When an organisation needs to insert a firewall inline between two network segments without any risk of dropping traffic during a failure, the standard design calls for bypass ports. The FortiGate 400E-BYPASS (FG-400E-BYPASS) is built around exactly that idea: 16 copper bypass pairs that maintain a direct electrical path if the device loses power or hardware fails. Combined with Fortinet’s NP6 and CP9 custom ASICs, it delivers 6.5 Gbps of IPS throughput in a single rack unit.

What is in the box

The FG-400E-BYPASS ships as a rackmount 1RU chassis with dual AC power supplies installed. No license is included. The table below summarises the hardware specifications sourced from Fortinet’s current datasheet.

Where the 400E-BYPASS fits

The bypass design targets environments where fail-open is the safer failure mode. Typical deployments include:

• Inline IPS segments where traffic must continue even if the IPS fails
• Transparent mode firewall insertion in network paths that cannot tolerate re-routing
• Campus or data-centre core links where 32 copper ports can connect multiple VLANs through a single 1RU appliance
• Security architectures that require physical bypass for compliance or audit continuity

Hardware alone vs. a bundle

This listing is hardware only. Without at least a FortiCare subscription, the device runs on factory firmware without signature updates or vendor support. For most production deployments, you will want to add a UTP or Enterprise protection bundle. The 1-year UTP bundle (FC-10-0400E-950-02-12) adds IPS, Anti-Malware, URL filtering, and Anti-Spam at the most common price point. The Enterprise bundle (FC-10-0400E-809-02-12) adds AI-based inline malware prevention, DLP, and Attack Surface Security on top.

Who runs this appliance

The 400E-BYPASS suits mid-sized enterprises and managed security service providers that need physically enforced bypass at mid-range throughput. With 3.5 million concurrent sessions and 310,000 new sessions per second, it handles the traffic volume of a medium campus or a regional data centre edge without requiring additional session-capacity licensing.

Moving up

If you outgrow the 400E-BYPASS’s capacity or need SFP uplink ports and additional virtual domain headroom, the FortiGate 600E is the natural next step in the same generation with comparable form factor.

Buying from DataCenter360.ca

DataCenter360.ca keeps the FG-400E-BYPASS in Canadian inventory, so delivery is typically 0–1 business days by courier within Canada. We are a Fortinet Select Partner; every unit comes with a valid serial number registered through authorised distribution. Licences can be added at the same time or separately after the hardware arrives.