UPS

[doodab]

OK, I think I'm going to buy one of these. I'm looking at the APC Back UPS and Back UPS Pro. Anyone using one? I know APC make decent stuff, I have one of their surge protectors and it's nice and solid. Are there any credible alternatives in this price range?

Do I go for the basic 400/550VA model or splash out on the 1500VA Pro one that will give me 20-30 minutes of continued work before I need to shut down? The difference seems to be about £200, which is peanuts but then I don't work that hard so that''s £160 I could spend on something I actually want instead. What do you reckon?

I should mention that this was bought on by a power cut. I don't mind losing a bit of work but this was an invoice. Most upsetting.

 

[hyperD]

I've got an APC 3000 Smart UPS. I've had it for about 10 years. Last year I had to replace the battery. I was surprised at the number of fluctuations of power during the day and my UPS has saved any servers from switching off (before I had UPS, the cleaners tripped the fuse box and I had to rebuild 2 servers).

Nowadays I use a separate circuit for the office. During one power cut I managed to play WoW for over an hour before realising I was the only house in the street with power!

The 3000VA was enough to run two servers, a workstation, router, Draytek firewall, 16 port switch (and a desklight) and 3 monitors for about 10-15 mins.

I would say get the best power one you can afford. The ones the size of golf cart batteries give you enough time to look surprised before shouting expletives as your equipment suddenly shuts off.

It's worth doing the VA calculation beforehand.

 

[TheFaQQer]

Having tripped the fuse last night and wiped out all the plugs, I'm tempted to get a couple of these - APC Back-UPS RS 1200VA LCD 230V | Ebuyer.com

One for the two NAS and one for the two desktop machines.

 

[d000hg]

Does the cost/benefit make sense? If you're spending (say) £250 that's of the order 5 hours' work. Assuming you're not going to loose saved data how much work is being able to power down safely going to save you - unless you work all day without saving in which case more fool you

 

[stek]

Don't laptops have batteries?

 

[doodab]

Does the cost/benefit make sense? If you're spending (say) £250 that's of the order 5 hours' work. Assuming you're not going to loose saved data how much work is being able to power down safely going to save you - unless you work all day without saving in which case more fool you

I save often, plus most tools I'm using autosave, so I didn't actually loose anything, but it did cause an unclean power down my server VM and in the past I've had that corrupt databases which in the case of the DB where my niche product stores it's metadata can take a while to recover and recreate lost work. TBH I've probably not lost more than a day of work in the last 5 years, OTOH a basic model that will cover my primary workstation and monitor is only ~ £100. I'm not worried about router or printer etc, so that will do the job. £300 should give me a good half hour of runtime which will get me through most power cuts unscathed.

 

[doodab]

Don't laptops have batteries?

Yes, but I work on a desktop quad core with 32GB RAM, 6 hard disks and a 24" screen. You have to spend a lot of money on a laptop to get that sort of oomph.

 

[VectraMan]

Don't laptops have batteries?

WHS. Use a laptop; problem solved.

So does 1500VA mean ~6A at 240V for an hour? Or more realistically 144W for 10 hours?

Or does it refer to the max load rather than capacity?

 

[doodab]

WHS. Use a laptop; problem solved.

So does 1500VA mean ~6A at 240V for an hour? Or more realistically 144W for 10 hours?

Or does it refer to the max load rather than capacity?

VA is the capacity. There is a separate rating in Watts for the maximum load. You also need to factor in the efficiency at a given load, typically you only get 70-80% of the capacity, especially when you're only drawing 200W from something rated for 750.

 

[vetran]

laptops are fine but the adsl & switches should be on UPS as well. Dropouts on my router were a daily event before I fitted a UPS to everything.

APC are market leader in volume mainly at the bottom end.

Chloride, Eaton & Emerson are considered the go to guys for larger installs. But they all do smaller units and some are bargains as they are competing with APC.

have a look at this for an overview of types.

Part 5

Your UPS if it has communication should come with software to shutdown most OSs. Some manufacturers charge extra so watch out.