UPS

mushtafa · 20 Mar 2022 at 08:48

Who's the go-to manufacture for a small tower form UPS?

Is APC the safe and reliable option? Anything better? I've found a site that sells refurbed units, but so many to choose between!

I'm looking to spend around £150

BongoHunter · 20 Mar 2022 at 11:03

mushtafa said:
Who's the go-to manufacture for a small tower form UPS?

Is APC the safe and reliable option? Anything better? I've found a site that sells refurbed units, but so many to choose between!

I'm looking to spend around £150

I use APC, I have a pair from the Back-UPS range just for my NAS, switch/router, and my server - they are ok but will probably go for a enterprise rackmount next time.

Silicon Si · 20 Mar 2022 at 17:18

I have a APC SMT1000rmi2u rack mount ups with managemnt network card for my server, pfsense router switch and modem and a smart ups 1000 on my main windows pc and a linux pc its very cool during a power outage to still to be able to carry on as long as the fttc street cabinet ups works, we had a power cut for over an hour and the street cabinet went down !!

BongoHunter · 20 Mar 2022 at 18:33

Just following up from my post above - something worth thinking about is what your trying to cover with your UPS. For me my NAS and Server will gracefully power down after 5 mins on UPS power, and my switch and router will just have power cut once the UPS is drained.

If you want to run throughout a sustained outage or have an unreliable supply at home it's worth looking at enterprise level gear (refurbs should be fine of you go somewhere reputable). Also worth thinking about how often you get power cuts - and how long they typically last!

Cheers

mushtafa · 20 Mar 2022 at 21:24

A power cut is usually rare, but have had two outages this year already. I only need it to last 10 minutes so my unraid server can shutdown safely.

EsaT · 21 Mar 2022 at 20:06

mushtafa said:
Is APC the safe and reliable option?

Some models have basically been designed to cook themselves from alive.
So in short brand is never guarantee of anything.
It's specific model which tells something more.

Quartz · 21 Mar 2022 at 20:25

mushtafa said:
Who's the go-to manufacture for a small tower form UPS?

I switched from APC to Cyberpower. My mini-review is here.

mushtafa · 21 Mar 2022 at 20:27

I went for an APC BX1400UI. Thanks for the input.

https://www.apc.com/shop/uk/en/products/APC-Back-UPS-1400VA-230V-AVR-IEC-Sockets/P-BX1400UI

EsaT · 21 Mar 2022 at 22:16

mushtafa said:
I went for an APC BX1400UI. Thanks for the input.

https://www.apc.com/shop/uk/en/products/APC-Back-UPS-1400VA-230V-AVR-IEC-Sockets/P-BX1400UI

Well, that's marketing scam edition model with actual output power being half of marketing number.
Though for file server that's enough.

But still have to wonder what else is questionable in it.
Design must be the cheapest Chinese to have power factor of 0.5 when basically all consumer appliances sold in western countries have had power factor correction for years.

landyvlad · 22 Mar 2022 at 02:45

I have a cyberpower and it's been food for domestic use - occasional short outrages where fuses go etc. Run time is only about 10 minutes (depending on load) but that is typical at the price point. To get much longer times you need enterprise systems which have been mentioned which cost thousands of your currency of choice. Those are generally used for alarm systems and CCTV though (or of course at a whole other level essential servers for a large business)

A UPS to support 4 hours recording on a CCTV system of say 20 cameras costs around $3K AUD here.

mushtafa · 23 Mar 2022 at 07:31

EsaT said:
Well, that's marketing scam edition model with actual output power being half of marketing number.
Though for file server that's enough.

But still have to wonder what else is questionable in it.
Design must be the cheapest Chinese to have power factor of 0.5 when basically all consumer appliances sold in western countries have had power factor correction for years.

Does this need to be returned? It should be arriving today. The reviews appeared to be OK

EsaT · 24 Mar 2022 at 21:29

For some file server use it has far more than enough output power.

And at least it has some cooling, unlike Back-UPS ES, so it shouldn't bake itself too fast.

jaybee · 24 Mar 2022 at 21:42

I have a very old APC Smart-UPS 750 I got free when someone gave it away as they thought it was dead. Just needed a new battery. I generally have to replace the battery about every 2 years. It currently powers a 5 port gigabit switch and my unraid server. It reckons current load with everything running basically at idle is using 18% of the UPS load and that it will provide 38 minutes of uptime if it kicks in. This is obviously more than enough time for unraid to auto shutdown which is all configurable. Usually power cuts come and go within that time period as are brief and it therefore just keeps running.
Never had issues with it really and integrates well.

Rroff · 24 Mar 2022 at 21:54

EsaT said:
Well, that's marketing scam edition model with actual output power being half of marketing number.
Though for file server that's enough.

But still have to wonder what else is questionable in it.
Design must be the cheapest Chinese to have power factor of 0.5 when basically all consumer appliances sold in western countries have had power factor correction for years.

I've posted about it before but we ordered a load of that model and had tons turn up not working - they had a proper engineer checklist from production (so almost certainly were working as shipped from APC) and in later cases we had the supplier check some before sending - for some reason a good number weren't surviving transit very well. No idea if that is still an issue (I'm not really involved with that any more but I think they changed to CyberPower like above).

Not really had any issues with them in use - work fine as long as you don't cram them in somewhere with poor ventilation so they get too hot. Batteries last about 2-3 years under heavy use but strangely degrade kind of fast - for about 2, probably closer to 3, years the estimated time on battery drops only a few percent then suddenly they won't last more than a few seconds - no graceful degradation (and no warning).

(Unlike the ES units they don't bake themselves to death but they still could be better cooling wise)

mushtafa · 25 Mar 2022 at 07:35

It was an Amazon warehouse deal, so has been previously returned for some reason.
The unit itself looks OK, but not plugged it in yet - waiting for a USB cable to arrive today

EsaT · 25 Mar 2022 at 14:23

Rroff said:
I've posted about it before but we ordered a load of that model and had tons turn up not working - they had a proper engineer checklist from production (so almost certainly were working as shipped from APC) and in later cases we had the supplier check some before sending - for some reason a good number weren't surviving transit very well. No idea if that is still an issue (I'm not really involved with that any more but I think they changed to CyberPower like above).

Batteries last about 2-3 years under heavy use but strangely degrade kind of fast - for about 2, probably closer to 3, years the estimated time on battery drops only a few percent then suddenly they won't last more than a few seconds - no graceful degradation (and no warning)

That kind breaking up during shipping sounds like flimsy design, or shoddy construction. (or both)

IIRC have heard some APC UPSes can push battery charging little too agressively.
That might explain "sudden death".

mushtafa · 26 Mar 2022 at 07:12

I've plugged it in and everything seems to work OK. It does make some noise when on battery mode though. Will keep an eye on it in case it shouldn't do that!

Rroff · 26 Mar 2022 at 07:14

mushtafa said:
I've plugged it in and everything seems to work OK. It does make some noise when on battery mode though. Will keep an eye on it in case it shouldn't do that!

They do buzz a bit on battery that is normal.

mushtafa · 27 Mar 2022 at 09:48

Rroff said:
They do buzz a bit on battery that is normal.

That's good to hear. It's a weird high pitched noise.

dimension99 · 6 Apr 2022 at 06:27

EsaT said:
Well, that's marketing scam edition model with actual output power being half of marketing number.
Though for file server that's enough.

But still have to wonder what else is questionable in it.
Design must be the cheapest Chinese to have power factor of 0.5 when basically all consumer appliances sold in western countries have had power factor correction for years.

In my experience APC runtime figures are a joke.
I purchased an SMT1500R2I which is supposed to do 2 hours run time with my server load, but the run time drops to 40 minutes almost immediately, I had two replacements and they did the exact same thing. I'm convinced their runtimes are calculated by the same engineer's that did VW's emissions and MPG figures!
I had lots of excuses about powerfactor correction, but the UPS is reporting at 0.9 PF and an inverter efficiency of 94+% which contradicted their excuses. Basically you need to look at their run times and then take 50% off.

This is now 5 years old now and still seems to have 40 minute of run time according to battery tests, but I have not run a full length test to see.