🛡️ Palo Alto PA-3220 vs PA-3250 vs PA-3260

Palo Alto PA-3220 vs PA-3250 vs PA-3260 — all three are 2U PA-3200 Series firewalls with the same management ports and redundant 650 W AC or DC power, so the decision rests on throughput, session capacity and I/O. Palo Alto's datasheet (measured on PAN-OS 11.1) lists App-ID firewall throughput of 4, 5 and 7.5 Gbps, Threat Prevention throughput of 2.2, 2.5 and 4 Gbps, IPsec VPN throughput of 2.4, 2.6 and 4.4 Gbps, and 1 million, 2 million and 2.2 million maximum concurrent sessions respectively.

The I/O differs too. The PA-3220 has 12 × 10/100/1000 RJ45, 4 × 1G SFP and 4 × 1G/10G SFP/SFP+ ports; the PA-3250 has 8 × 1G/10G SFP/SFP+ alongside its 12 RJ45 ports; and only the PA-3260 adds 4 × 40G QSFP+.

Palo Alto lists all three as end-of-sale from 31 August 2023, with end-of-life on 31 August 2028 and the PA-3400 Series as the replacement, so they suit existing PA-3200 estates, spares and like-for-like HA pairs rather than new designs. Within that, the PA-3220 fits gateways that sit inside 4 Gbps and 1 million sessions, the PA-3250 doubles the session table for busier sites, and the PA-3260 is the only one with 40G uplinks and 4 Gbps of Threat Prevention.

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