SonicWall TZ 380 03-SSC-6945 firewall appliance

TZ 380 firewall for small sites

The SonicWall TZ 380 is a desktop security appliance built for small organisations and lean branch offices. It runs SonicOS 8 and includes a one-year Advanced Protection Security Suite with gateway anti-virus, intrusion prevention, TLS decryption and reputation-based content filtering. Eight 1 GbE copper ports and two multi-rate SFP ports provide wired connectivity, while a console micro-USB and a USB-C port support local management. The unit draws up to 13.77 W from a 100-240 VAC supply.

Throughput and connection limits

Firewall inspection throughput reaches 3.5 Gbps, while threat prevention throughput is 1.5 Gbps. Application inspection and IPS throughput both sit at 2.0 Gbps, and VPN throughput peaks at 1.6 Gbps. The platform supports up to 1,100,000 concurrent connections with a new-connection rate of 15,000 per second. Optional internal storage can be expanded up to 512 GB for logging or caching. These figures suit small-branch traffic loads but will saturate under sustained multi-gigabit inspection demands.

Upgrade path from entry appliances

The TZ 380 replaces lower-throughput desktop firewalls that lack SD-Branch features, secure SD-WAN, zero-touch deployment and centralised management through Network Security Manager. It adds Wi-Fi 6 firewall management and DNS security without requiring a separate controller. Sites needing higher VPN capacity, deeper packet throughput or rackmount form factors should evaluate larger series. The jump is worthwhile when branch count grows beyond what a single entry appliance can centrally manage.