Fortinet FortiSwitch 224E

Twenty-four Gigabit ports with Layer 3 routing, fanless, and a redundant supply as standard.

Redundant Power Without the Extra Box

The 224E is the only switch in the 200 Series with redundant AC fitted as standard rather than as an optional external unit. Combined with being fanless, that makes it the one to pick where the switch has to stay up and stay quiet - a small server room, a production area, a branch with no second cabinet.

Layer 3 When You Want It

The 200 Series is where FortiSwitch becomes Layer 2/3: it can route between VLANs on its own rather than hairpinning everything through the firewall. Under FortiLink that rarely matters, but for a standalone deployment - a site with no FortiGate, or one where the switch has to keep working independently - it is the difference between a switch and an access layer. The Advanced Features Licence unlocks it.

Managed as an Extension of the Firewall

A FortiSwitch can run standalone, but the reason to buy one alongside a FortiGate is FortiLink: the switch becomes a logical extension of the firewall, so ports, VLANs and network access control are configured in the same console as the security policy. That removes the usual split between the team that owns the switch and the team that owns the firewall, and it is why NAC on these switches costs nothing extra.