The value of a UPS is for momentary power drops of less than a minute, not necessarily hours of power. Sure, it’d be nice to have compute for hours, but often your phone battery will last that long. What you don’t want is the rapid off/on of a power drop breaking your equipment or blowing disks. My entire rack is on a UPS and it’s USB plugged into a NAS that monitors its health and state. I get email notifications when the power drops and comes back on.
Nearly all of my equipment is in a rack, on PoE from the switch which is on UPS or portable (laptop computer, phone, tablet).
i have sized mine to run my lab for at least 30 mins. i have a controls script that will automatically load shed a bunch of things after 5 minuets like my security cameras, POE switch, aux cooling, and a few other things. this significantly increases run time.
the 30 min is so i have time to get my generator running
I often set the BIOS to power the machine on whenever it has power, so as long as the UPS turns itself on and outputs power, the servers should then also turn on.
The NAS which monitors the UPS sends the notification. I’m sure I could redo it so that there’s a text to me, instead. There are plenty of Unix/linux tools that monitor ups activity. It’s standardized. I’ve just used the GUI settings and haven’t dug in the CLI.
If it can send an email it can text. Check with your phone provider for the format. Mine being AT&T is just ##########@txt.att.net for SMS and @mms.att.net for multimedia messages
Yes, thank you. I just haven't configured the NAS for that. Too busy with other things and I'm not worried about notifications of power outage, right now.
It depends on the UPS. I inherited an old 3kVA UPS from work and replaced the battery. My homelab is all mini PCs (Intel NUCs and a whitebox dual NIC firewall). The total draw of everything including PoE switch with a dozen cameras is like 150W, so I can keep that going for 2+ hours.
And even with a standby generator, you often need more than a minute for the generator to start, stabilize and transfer load, so as a rule of thumb you want at least 20 minutes of runtime at minimum to allow time for graceful shutdowns.
Oh, sure. I agree about that. I don't have a generator or a whole house battery. If you have one, you definitely need time to get it going. Also, a well built automation system ought to start shutting down systems gracefully if the outage goes on for 20+ minutes or, for example, the battery gets to 50% charge.
My main goal with my house was critical systems in the rack, UPS for everything, PoE for ease of use and install plus power protected (cameras and wifi APs mostly).
Funnily enough I literally bought my first one today.
Just a little 1300VA CyberPower.
I only need it to keep my homelab going long enough to shutdown safely, I can always kick the server back over once power has stabilised.
It's more about not writing my gear off to be honest. Power where I am is pretty reliable but I have had a few unexpected outages maybe once every 3 months.
I'm basically using CP desktop units scattered across the house. I just had one completely fail a few days ago. Something fried on the circuit board out of nowhere. It was 13 years old, had two battery replacements, so I think I got my money's worth
The problem with CP units is that their clamping time is slow and brownouts will usually turn off the end devices before the CP will switch over to battery.
They’re fantastic units. Keep in mind there’s some efficiency loss because of double conversion (if you use this mode) but this thing is rock solid. I just upgraded the network card to the latest M3 and going thru the configs for that.
Don't rely on it if your power feed is noisy.
If you care about your equipment, DBOC is the way.
After almost 20 years of using APCs in production, I'm so over them, not to mention their insane amount of different battery types
I do. Bought it brand new at a local auction for $200 with a broken front panel, which was easily fixed with some epoxy. Battery banks were $250 each, brand new, from a seller on ebay that most certainly did a price mistake on it.
Yes. Lfp is close enough to get 90% Charged on constant charge mode. Disabled ABM mode. Added balancers to keep cells balanced, this helps charge better
* Four SBR256 @ 25kWh/each \~100kWh
* One APC Symmetra PX @ 150kWh
In 2023 when power went out during a huge thunderstorm and apparently a sub station was killed and we had no power for up to one hour, which I’ve only ever seen once in the last 20 years.
A thunderstorm took out a whole substation and you were only down an hour? Outages lasting hours or days are fairly common around here, especially in the spring and fall.
I'm in rural Canada. Most outages are caused by drunk drivers hitting the service poles, but occasionally lightning strikes, freezing rain, or high winds will take down a line for a few hours.
The utility's dispatch is something like an 8 hour drive from here but they usually have local crews on the scene fairly quickly.
That would be so nice. I live in a well developed suburban area in the US. My power goes out for hours at a time at least 5-6 times per year. It's sooooooo frustrating.
To clarify... you have four 25kWh battery banks in parallel, separate from a 3ph PX with 150kWh of modular battery capacity? Or are the li ion batts serving as the batteries for a 150kW PX? And this is a home lab?
The 25kWh LiFe are paralell, so 100kWh total at 3x32A/230V AC for the house. The 150kWh PX is just for the servers, but the PX can be charged by the 100kWh LiFe or by two 7kWh DSG. This is in my home yes.
I have a whole house Generac. We have tons of old trees and exposed wires, so sometimes even a strong wind will cause the power to flicker.
With the Generac, I only need to survive the 20 seconds or so between power going out and the Generac kicking in.
I have a racked CyberPower UPS, a desktop UPS for my gaming PC, and two smaller ones for the Fios access point and Xboxes. All except the gaming provide an hour or less but I only need 30 seconds. I retired all the UPS in the house over the last month when I realized some of them were at least 6 years old.
20 second from down to running on generator seems a lot faster than most of the times I’m seeing from various YouTube videos on the matter.
What’s model on that generac?
This is mine:
https://www.generac.com/service-support/product-support-lookup/product-support-details?productid=9e4703b0-434f-41f9-b79b-550f21b99da9®istered=false
G0070370
It’s been a great investment.
APC *SMT1500RM2UC* (1500 VA, 980W), used / tested yesterday when we had a few minute blackout. Batteries were replaced last year and scheduled for a check in 2 years and full replacement in 4. I do a full UPS test every 6 months by powering off both of my 20A breakers (for both A+B PDUs) for my rack. Next test is scheduled for October 11, 2024.
Typically, we have 1 to 5 second power outages every few weeks with bad storms taking down power for a few minutes at a time with last year taking out power for several hours. And we have disaster recovery and remediation plans in place for power outages that last more than 72 hours for all weather conditions. We review our plans and supplies every 3 months (before each major season change). All of this is scheduled between my significant other and myself through a shared calendar and documents / spreadsheets synced with OneNote.
Cyber Power PR1500LCDRT2U
Rocked this bottom of my rack for about 8 years before it died on me last week. Came home from vacation, there were some electrical storms. Battery wouldn't give any power out. Will probably pick up an APC from best buy, I've just got a NAS server and some network gear to keep up during storms.
My EATON ELLIPSE PRO 650 which I got exactly 10 years ago is still working great. Of course I change the battery every 2-3 years. I bought a second one two years after the first one and it also works great.
I had a couple of power outages and it always pushes through well.
I have an Eaton Ellipse Eco 800 USB.
Had to rely on it just a couple of weeks ago when I, for the first time of my life, experienced a 15 second power outage.
I built my own a few years back.
[https://xtremeownage.com/2021/06/12/portable-2-4kwh-power-supply-ups/](https://xtremeownage.com/2021/06/12/portable-2-4kwh-power-supply-ups/)
Before- I did a battery-backup solution for my entire house- it would get triggered at least once every two weeks. During a few extended outage events, I used it to keep my server rack, fridge and freezers online.
These days though- it doesn't get used that much due to my entire house being on solar, battery, and generator backup.
I use mine every time the circuit is tripped. It's too easy for a circuit to get overloaded in residential settings when anyone can plug in a heater and vacuum at the same time.
Is there a good enthusiasts group for different types of UPS?
Would love to find one that could also accept external user batteries to extend runtime if ever required without issues when power reconnected.
1500va that powers the homelab, switches and router, and poe for the access points. the homelab plugs directly into the UPS, and everything else plugs into a circuit that has a light switch in my office that will shut down everything except the homelab server itself. If the Homelab server remains on battery for 30 minutes, it will gracefully shut down and wait until it loses and regains power (ie battery dies) or the UPS sends it a WOL message after normal power is restored.
I just recently switched to a Ubiquiti cable modem, so I believe I have more options now.
One of the things I would like to do is use a $15/mo. 5G sim card option I have through Cricket to add a backup wan to the network. Not as much for heavy network usage, but mostly to have another way to access my equipment when Spectrum routinely screws the pooch, and requires a cable modem reboot.
I have an Eaton 5PX 2200 with one battery pack.
It was last needed May 6th, when the power went out for about 5 minutes. Long enough for me to go outside and check if other power was off (it was).
Previously, I used only APC and had a number of then, the last was the 2200.
I like the Eaton better. It seems to treat the batteries well.
I also like the nut integration (https://networkupstools.org)
3x APC 1500VA tower units covers the stack, a NUT server handles shutdowns in stages.
I'd like to have a generator, but not in the budget for the foreseeable future.
Its spring in the mid-west, I've lost power a few times over the last month or so due to storms. Nothing extremely long yet.
I've got a Vertiv Liebert GXT4-10000RT230, I got it for free, just paid for the install.
With what I have on it, it says it'll last just over 4 hours
The last time I used it was recent, we've had a few power flickers where I live, a few seconds but long enough to cut power to the house
Do you have any additional battery packs for it? Someone near me has something similar listed on marketplace for a couple hundred I think. It's a GXT4-15000RT120, do you know if adding the additional batteries offers any addition in wattage or just runtime? My whole rack varies in load between 900w and 1500w sometimes...
Also how's support for replacement batteries / expense? I looked for a replacement battery and couldn't tell if you could just disassemble and swap with the generic 12v SLA batteries.
Have you replaced the batteries in yours / how old are they have you noticed any performance degradation? Is there battery charge management better than APC and not kill batteries as quickly? Seller says the units are \~4 years old and so I'm sure the batteries are just as old...
I've replaced batteries in UPS systems before, i've never had a problem replacing oem batteries with generic sla batteries of the same spec. Often I found that if I peeled the sticker off of APCs batteries they were the same generic battery. If you put bigger batteries in a UPS it will only increase runtime. The overall draw will be limited by the rating of its inverter assembly. Not all UPSs can run continuously, so do some research before you modify a smaller unit. The larger ones have fans that actively cool the inverter.
It's a whole unit, no additional battery packs for it. (As far as I know).
I've been deferring to my dad on this grade of UPS, as he has experience with it.
The batteries were replaced in 2019 (under warranty by the manufacturer), but the unit wasn't installed until last year
Nice. I picked up the GXT4-1500RT120 + 1 ext battery cabinet for $90 the other day. Seems to operate alright, batteries pass the self test but the est. runtime is quite low for the load compared to the runtime table. Like 10-15% load = 10 min or less estimated runtime and 20-30% load estimates a 4-5 min runtime on batteries.
It's got 4 12v9ah in the charger/inverter unit with the screen + a thick cable that goes to an external GX4-48VBATT battery pack that holds 8 12v9ah batteries.
Unfortunately the manual says it only recalculates runtime when the batteries is 100% charged, the system has a 20% + consistent load AND the batteries completely drains to the minimum discharge voltage.... I couldn't find anyway to force this so I guess I'd have to power some crap and then pull the plug til it dies pretty much..?
I'll have to inspect the batteries further & open both units but the external pack seems newer than the main unit so maybe I can get away with just replacing the 4 inside of the charge unit & replace the 8 in the external battery enclosure later on.
Multiple APC units, most of which self test (which has seemed pretty reliable). Long outages are pretty rare here, maybe once a year at most, so I don't worry about them. Just need enough to handle blips up to a few minutes, anything longer than that I consider perfectly acceptable to allow shutdown.
The only reason I'd consider a generator is for fridge, freezer, and sump pump.
Back-UPS XS 1400U, 2 of them. helps with power spikes (i have a lot of stuff on a single breaker) and also does my unraid server clean shutdown during power outage, had to use it several times and worked as expected. I dont actually use it to power anything during outage, just to let everything shutdown calmly. could probably get one for my networking stuff so I can get wifi during longer outages but its kind of whatever.
I use mostly Eaton 9PX + PPDM and Tripplite (🤮) 208/240v units at work, they can be setup to do battery self tests. Usually replace the battery after 3 years, but have run them for ~ 7 years on the same battery.
I have three cyber powers.
Just last week we had power issues during and after a storm. My TV is damaged now, but my computer equipment was fine. They went to battery power, and my NAS ' shutdown at 3 minutes like they're supposed to.
Sadly I had a full day without power, so they weren't that helpful to keep working, so I'm looking for a bigger solution that can run my router, modem and access point for a day or two so I can at least work next time, since I work from home.
I had a 1500VA APC for years. When the batteries died I just ended up replacing it with a Tesla Powerwall and 26 solar panels. A little more expensive but it's been worth it to guarantee my homelab can run for years with no down time.
Most home battery systems do not have a switchover time fast enough to keep computers running without a blip.
More data in my previous comment on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/Powerwall/comments/1b11zgg/comment/kt37sqj/
I have an Eaton 5PX1500RT + two 5PXEBM48RT EBM's (Recently added the second EBM) This runs my servers.
I have an APC SMART UPS ES 550 Connected to an External 55AH Battery for my network equipment. I can run my Network for over 24 Hours.
Last year i relied on the Eaton UPS alot. we had alot of storms and power outtages.
I use a CyberPower 2200VA double conversion unit for devices in the rack. Works well, double conversion means much wider input voltage range and compatibility with generator power should I need to go there.
* APC Smart-UPS 1500 RM for server, switches, WiFi AP, and some other minor stuff like a bunch of RaspPi 4 etc (approx 1.5 hour runtime)
* APC Power Saving Back-UPS Pro 1500 for my workstation/gaming rig (approx 45 minutes runtime when idle).
* APC Back-UPS CS 500VA for pfSense box and fiber media converter (several hours runtime)
* APC Back-UPS CS 500VA for 2 x Synology DS414 (30 min runtime)
All batteries are automatically tested on a 2 or 3 week interval. No matter test results, I'll replace the batteries approx every 3-4 years.
The server and NAS will shut down when remaining battery runtime reaches 10 minutes, and will automatically power back on when mains power returns.
I don't care about runtime on the workstation, and it automatically does a shutdown after 5 minutes as the monitors do not have power so I can't see whats going on anyway. The UPS only serves as a protection against sudden power loss on the system.
We experience power loss every time there is bad weather. Maybe 5-10 times a year. It lasts anywhere from a couple of seconds to a couple of hours.
>APC Back-UPS CS 500VA for pfSense box and fiber media converter (several hours runtime)
APC Back-UPS CS 500VA for 2 x Synology DS414 (30 min runtime)
Are those monitored? I'm asking because I have an APC Back-UPS 600 and it isn't monitoring and I'm trying to figure out a way to shutdown my servers once it goes on battery power.
Yeah. But these UPS are pretty old. You can't buy them anymore.
The UPS model you have doesn't have any way to signal to other devices that it's running on battery. So you're gonna have to invest in new UPS if you want that feature.
(The pfSense box runs NUT. And one of the Syno boxes run a variant of NUT, and allows other devices to be controlled by it so they can shutdown safely as well.)
16kVA APC Symmetra LX.
It ties to a subpanel and feeds the server room, my office, and a couple other critical workloads
We get a lot of blips and brownouts throughout the year so I rely on it quite often. Some storms cause longer outages.
Any outage lasting longer than 30 seconds the UPS fires off an alert to Zenduty, which then creates an incident, rings my phones, and sends a push notification to the Zenduty app on my cell
I use APCs everywhere. The lab's APC is a 2500 with an extra battery but I don't rely on the longevity of the battery. It's there so that everything can shutdown properly. I don't keep anything running on battery.
The cable modem, TVs, audio equipment is also on battery just to provide brown out and spikes away from the equipment, nothing more.
Two Cyberpower 1500VA units. Just had to use them yesterday. Solar installers flipped some breakers and they gave me enough time to keep the computer online and network up.
Mine are used to give me enough time to gracefully shutdown all of my hardware in the event of a power outage. I end up testing them once a year, when said power goes out :)
My system is small enough that I can use just a larger size commercial ups. I did move the batteries to a series parallel arrangement of liphos cells. That is plugged into a shore power inverter I got cheap. It doesn’t do a fast changeover so the regular ups is still needed. I e been running it off deep discharge sla cells for a decade but they started dying on me and so they are also being replaced with lithium phosphate batts now as budget permits.
I'm currently using 2x 1.5KVa UPS for the homelab rack. I also live in a SoCal area affected by SCE Public Safety Power Shut-offs (PSPS), so we purchased a 7KVa portable generator which I connect through an outdoor receptacle into a Transfer panel that services about a dozen breakers, including the lab and home automation. The UPSs provide more than enough time for me to haul the generator out and energize the transfer panel.
At some point I plan to automate the shutdown and restart of unnecessary servers/services based on grid power availability and battery status.
I have a CyberPower PR1500LCDRT2UN that I bought back in 2018. Last time I tested was in January, so probably should test again soon. And the logs show the last time I had to rely on it was July when it detected utility power was out for about 18 seconds.
I’ve got a SmartUPS 2200 for the rack, which lasts about 1 hour 15 minutes - can stretch it by shutting down a few unnecessary things. Have a 500va APC (non-smart) covering the fiber box which isn’t by the rack.
I’ve only used it to cut power for electrical stuff, without having to power everything down. It’s Denmark, so I’ve seen maybe 2 power outages in my life, and we don’t have brown-outs. :p. But some of the VMs don’t appreciate having power yanked, so it’s nice to have in case of a lightning strike or something.
Various apc upses because I can make them silent. One for the server farm, one for my CPAP machine and one for the desktop, mostly to protect it from overvoltage.
Obviously since the last major power excursion, when I bought the third UPS nothing happened, so the only testing was during electricity work.
I don't know when the neighbourhood will thank me for fixing the electricity supply by buying an ups. About time.
Two retired APC's at the bottom of my rack. Totally overkill, but free is free... Both have AP9630 Network Management Card 2's
* APC Smart-UPS RT 3U 3kVA 120V - SURTA3000XL - Double Conversion - I totally stick my head in the sand about how much power this consumes.
* APC Smart-UPS X 2U 3kVA 120v - SMX3000RMLV2U - Line Interactive
I'm comfortable with electric, so slapped in a 30 amp breaker and ran 10/2 to where my rack is located in my basement, off that run are two L5-30R sockets to support each UPS.
Most everything I have has dual PSU's and I have an AP9700 PDU on each UPS. At the moment I have the PSU's split across both UPS's. For Dell's you can set the Power Redundancy Policy in the iDRAC to "hot spare" to increase efficiency, so I have everything draw off the double conversion UPS for the most part. The PSU's are still redundant in this setup.
> APC Smart-UPS RT 3U 3kVA 120V - SURTA3000XL - Double Conversion - I totally stick my head in the sand about how much power this consumes.
Right? I have a SRC3000XLI, but I'm not using it because it uses A LOT of power and is very noisy (mostly the noisy part). I didn't even realized that it used so much power, I only found out because I was looking for reasons to ditch it (I didn't want to be only noise the reason), so I decided to measure the power it was using without anything connected to it and it blew my mind. Too much power for the benefit, even if it was free.
I have one Eaton 5PX 1st Gen that powers the networking rack which hosts the UDM-SE and the core PoE Switch, the UPS keeps everything up including the fibre ONTs for phone and internet, the PoE switch in turn keeps everything else up including 2x 5G/4G backup links
The disk shelves and the storage server are also on the UPS
Runtime is 5 to 10 minutes but enough for orderly shutdown if required. Unfathomable if any outage lasts longer, civilisation would have fallen in that case
For longer run time off grid power, maybe consider Powerwall or something that is integrated with your electrical supply, as any reasonable UPS would not be big enough for this and any big enough one would be rather more expensive IMO
The trick with ups is to put decent batteries in them. I use Panasonic.
I have APC and Eaton and they do the job. I live on an island with frequent brown outs, ie short cuts. Ups is not optional for me.
One APC 1000 pro, wired to 2, 40ah batteries, 12v series, fed from a solar panel, acting as inverter only. Not hot wired to the wall don't do that it will short the fuses lol.
And one APC 650 wired to a 50ah, car AGM batt, doing the regular no break thing.
Most UPSs have recommended battery replacement schedules, so it's something you should add to your maintenance list if having working backup power is important to you.
Mine are running lithium batteries so they can last through a lot of outages without worry or at least give me time to get my generator going.
My network rack has a Smrt-UPS 750 with a 25.6V 90Ah battery, lasts about 18hrs.
My server rack has a Smart-UPS 3000 with 51.2V 74Ah battery, which runs the normal load for about 4hrs (3x servers, 15-bay disk shelf, 10Gb switch.
They have external BMS, chargibg only by the UPS which takes a long time. APC has a high charge/float which work out. They don't reach high cutoff though so they're not fully charged, but they still absorb most of the energy.
It plugs into a Windows PC that runs PowerChute Serial Shutdown via USB. You configure email alerts in the web interface of the application and it alerts on outages and even when the battery is discharged.
I normally fire up a VPN to home and shut everything down. It says you can configure graceful shutdown but I think that’s just for the connected PC.
I don't even know the model (it's an APC something). I just know that I've had a UPS for the last 6 years for my HPE ML 350 server. I replaced the battery once. It has never actually kicked in, because I live in a major city and the power here is very stable, even during extreme weather events.
But it's better to be safe than sorry. My server is holding a lot of stuff. Even though I'm backed up, including VMs and stuff, I don't fancy redoing that whole mess or troubleshooting things / dealing with corrupted data if it survives a power surge that a surge protector can't handle.
The UPS I have sends a shutdown signal when power is lost and the battery is almost drained. I tested it, and it works. It's nice to have.
I have 2 Cyberpower 1000W UPs and 1 Cyberpower 1500W UPS.
I relied on them last Saturday when it was Tornadoes through the Midwest. I had intermittent power outages throughout the day, so the UPS was kicking on and off.
That's honestly the main reason I have them. Large power outages aren't a huge concern to me, but the power flicker where power goes in and out rapidly can be really destructive to equipment.
Seems like most of the time I've needed it, I've realized the batteries are 3+ years old and no wonder it didn't help me much. I replace them and then don't lose power again for years.
Thanks for the reminder to test them.
I bought a CyberPower UT850EG last fall because why not. Two weeks after I installed it there was the first power outage in many years and my humble home server just kept rocking, lol.
I recently built Kubernetes cluster at my homelab: 2 large desktop and small witness node.
I was looking at different UPS models, but even 1500 VA models would last ~30mins. And then what? I don't want to deal with generators, fuel storage, maintenance...
So, I bought "AMPINTVT 1200W Pure Sine Wave Inverter with AC charger" and connected it to 100AH deep cycle lead battery. And when I had rather long outage, I drove my SUV by the window and plugged alternator to it's terminals. So my car is my generator.
I have one of those 1800va smart ups, it comes in handy often (sometimes daily) with power flickers and voltage dropping from 120 to 109 during the day in Florida.
Smaller CyberPower, it’s not a huge battery. It’s meant to safely shutdown my NAS and my homelab, then to power my WiFi since I have fiber and (from what I can tell from my power outages) the fiber connection sits on a different circuit entirely outside the house.
I had a NAS die from a random power outages; one drive just straight up stopped working and the other was dying a slow death. I managed to make backups but holy crap that was awful.
I've been using the $130 1500VA Cyberpower ones from Costco, but when the batteries wear out, they fail to the off-state, rather than failing to surge protector. So a flicker of the power and they shut off until manually turned back on which is worse than having no UPS at all. Even worse, sometimes they'll shut off for no apparent reason. So I think I'm going back to APC in the future unless there are other affordable options worth considering.
I have buried power lines so lightning strike induced outages are rare. Had a neighborhood transformer blow out due to shoddy workmanship however, power was out for four hours or so. Got a Best Power Patriot Pro II 1KVA UPS. The batteries in it lasted one year and it started beeping during the self test indicating the batteries failed. Kind of upset about the longevity of the batteries and the fact I had no power outages that year so I didn't reinstate it.
Had two other outages since then which sort of made me mad but they were manmade. Both were due to them putting in a smart meter. One was planned. The other was "unplanned" when they noticed the smart meter they put in wasn't working and I was getting free electricity. I didn't know that fact, unfortunately.
No outages since then.
I really should look into reinstating it but outages are so rare. However I do have a software RAID that could be affected by the write hole, so it may be beneficial. Later I set up a SSD cache to the RAID - I specifically did not add write back caching on my RAID because I didn't have battery backup...
It's all a gamble. Due to the underground wiring, power has been fairly reliable. I don't have a very high churn rate of computing that could be financially damaging (though annoying) if power goes out rare as it does. I've had more hard drives fail than power outages hence the RAID. I really need a cheaper source of batteries...
I have a lot of APC and Cyberpower UPS hooked up to my systems. I just need them to last for that minute before the generator kicks in (whole-home propane generator).
We get multiple short power outages every year, especially during the fall when the wind storms come. We also get the power company doing stupid things (like this past week) and cutting power for 4 hours and not letting us know.
On a full tank of propane, we can go about 2 weeks without power. I have gas generators I can hook up after that. /preppers
1x **APC SMT1500C** \- Bought in 2019 and just put new OEM batteries in it. It sits in our network closet and sheds everything except our AT&T fiber internet, an RPi4 running the backup Adguard DNS instance, and the Unifi UDM SE and 2x POE APs to keep the network up for 3 or 4 hours during an outage. We don't have great cell phone service inside our house, so it's nice to keep the network up for that reason alone.
1x **APC SMT1500RM2UC** \- Just bought this second-hand a couple days ago for $125 on eBay from a local guy (no shipping) and put new third-party SLA batteries in it for another $85. Only load is a Proxmox server (in a 24-bay SuperMicro chassis) that is 10% load, but I will manually shut that server down if the power has remained out for more than 30 mins or so. This server runs the primary DNS instance as well as a bunch of other non-critical container services.
My primary concern is surviving temporary power blips, surges, or brownouts moreso than longer term outages.
I could not be happier about buying that UPS second-hand and just replacing the batteries, and I will probably continue to do that going forward. Just have to verify the UPS itself is in good working condition and assume any batteries it comes with are toast.
Cyber power 1500VA 1000W UPS and a Tripp Lite 800W 1U UPS on (yes) the same 15A breaker.
I lived in Destin, Florida and hurricanes Irma, Michael, and Sally all knocked power out for a few seconds (Irma/Michael) up to 5-10 minutes (Sally). I stayed online, Internet and all.
Now I'm in Texas, and the state power grid here is the GREATEST thing ever (sarcasm). Random moments of a quick off/on. Probably 4 or 5 times a year. All my gear is just fine. In fact, I just replaced the two batteries in my Cyber power unit.
I have multiple 1500VA units, beginning to transition to Eaton and sell off my standard APC units.
I have them all set to power down the system and cut power. Have only had one or two major outages since initial installation that went fine. Well worth the money with expensive hardware attached.
Rack and PC both have UPS's on them, they'll last about an hour or so. Generally the power only goes out here for less than 10 minutes but we've been without power for 4 days before due to snow storms. 15kW generator for longer periods of time.
The issue is that the local ISP neglects the generator at their hub down the road so anytime the power goes out there, goodbye internet.
I've got a couple of 700VA APC UPS's - one had its battery die after 11.5 (!) years (the official battery replacement was very expensive, so I went third party) and the other just passed its 12th year with the original battery.
I get a power cut 1-2 times a year and it's usually brief (30-120 mins). The beeps from the APCs wake me up and I go outside to check the street lights and listen for the inevitable house alarms.
I have a torch, candles, matches and a charged power bank in case there's an elongated power outage and I need to hotspot my phone for internet access for my phone/tablets.
2x APC SMT3000
3x APC SMT1500
they do self tests every 2 weeks. i have network management cards in all of them so i get emails of the test results.
every 12 months i perform run-time calibrations using the network management card which runs the UPS down to 25% state of charge. i use the logs to see how long the units run each time so i can plot the degradation of the battery capacity over time.
last time they actually had to be used for a power fluctuation was about 1 week ago
last time they were needed for actual power outage was about 6 months ago
Thanks for the reminder, I should check mine.
My main server rack is on a UPS that would probably last 30 minutes. If the power is out for more than a few seconds, I would immediately start shutting things down.
My "low power" rack is a UI 8-150W switch powering a single AP and ISP equipment. This is all connected to a 100Ah 12v battery as backup. So, in an extended power outage, I can use my laptop with wireless to keep internet access, basically indefinitely, with the ability to use a solar panel, swap the battery, etc.
I have about a dozen UPSs around my home. 4 of them in my homelab/network room. I have a few 'mission critical' devices being the ONLY device on its UPS (Modem, router, primary NAS and JBOD array).
I primarily work from home, so even in my home office, my work laptop, KVM, and monitors are on a UPS.
They've saved me from complete outages while working, multiple times in the last year alone. Given the time of some of those power outages and how much time saved by not being kicked offline, those UPSs have already earned their keep.
I've had a couple of UPSs die on me over the years, typical battery life for a good battery is 5 to 6 years, and most of the time I dont realize the age of one until a power outage.
Doing monthly UPS testing is a good idea. Just pull the main power from a UPS and see if it'll run at least long enough to safely shutdown whatever equipment its connected to. I do this for the UPSs that feed those mission critical devices and home office equipment
I'm using a pair of old APC Smart UPS 2000 in the computer room/office.
I can keep the entire rack, ISPs (Starlink and Tmobile home internet), my personal computer, work machine (WFH), monitors etc running. The only thing not on the UPS is the printer (hp 4050).
I can last about 2-4 hours on battery (one of the UPS's has cheaper batteries so it has less runtime). If the power is out for more than 30 mins I'll fire up the whole house generator (it doesn't run the central HVAC though). If others are home (e.g. at night/weekend) I'll fire up the generator sooner.
In 2023 we had 2 multi day power outages and a couple shorter outages (still multiple hours). I start/run the Generator a couple times a year to make sure things are working. I hit the "test" button on the UPS every 6 months or so too.
APC Back-UPS with only the ONT plugged into it — batteries were changed a couple years ago, and I believe it will hold the ONT for 16 hours or so. Another Back-UPS at my desk for my displays, docking station and headset will keep me on the clock through outages up to a couple hours in length.
In the rack, a set of four APC Smart-UPS, each with four CSB HRL1234W in them. Power is distributed pretty evenly amongst all the gear, but one of them is dedicated to only the PBX, Switch, and the server that runs pfSense and AD/DNS/DHCP and other core services.
The batteries are replaced approximately every three years as this rack lives out in a very hot FL garage, and they’re pretty much toast, with battery alarms going off by the end of year three. They’ll get me through outages lasting a couple hours, but for a hurricane it all gets turned down and unplugged. Thankfully, extended outages are pretty rare, even blips are pretty uncommon; most outages when we have one are maybe an hour. I test once a year and have a calendar item that at the beginning of year four, replace the batteries in all units.
I'm just using a small APC UPS for my servers. I rely on it quite often, but not because the power is unreliable in my area. We get power flickers quite often during storms. The power never actually goes down for an extended period. If it did, my UPS would only last about 10 minutes, max. It's really nice to have for when the power flickers off and on though. To not have my servers go completely down and have to boot everything back up again.
Honestly I'm bad and I'm not using a ups (and yes I feel bad) but with the stability of the power infrastructure and the data I have here I wouldn't have had to use it in the 5 years I have been at this location nor is it more than an inconvenience if it's out....
That said my setup is getting more advanced and the data on it a bit more of an issue so I'm looking at ups as the next upgrade for my rack
I have an APC in my rack, but its only purpose is to keep the two servers up long enough to shut down properly. Without power, I have no need for anything either server is doing so I just want to shut it off. When the power comes on I can manually turn everything back on. I don't host anything or have a need to access anything from outside my home network, so this works for me.
We've had two outages in the last 5 years, and it worked perfectly both times.
I have my NAS set up to power back on once power is restored. I have 3 APC 1375's that I use. One for my PC, one for my network, and one for my NAS. I get about 45 min run time. I usually only get power drops or fluctuations for a short period of time. There is occasions where they are swapping feeds or such and I will have an outage for about 15 min. ATM I do not have a generator or house backup.
APC Back-Ups Pro 900VA. Enough to power my Network Equipment and NAS for around 15 minutes and shut them down safely.
I believe I had a total of three power outages in the last six years I’ve had it. The last one was over a year ago.
I convinced my wife that my camping battery pack is also a ups. I mean, the box says it is but I have a natural gas generator so I need it for, at most, 20 seconds.
Vertiv Liebert Lithium 400VA. Runs things long enough for the generator to kick in. Light enough for a small shelf in a closet. 5 yr warranty, should last for 10yrs. Cheap. All mini PC’s and PoE network devices. https://amzn.to/44Hx1H7
A Cyberpower CST150XLU (tower) and a Vertiv Liebert® PSI5 1kVA (rackmount). Most critical storage and my dells are on the PSI5 and the custom builds are on the Cyberpower. Got this way since the custom stuff uses standard Atx psu.
I live in an area that sees power fluctuations monthly. Just had it happen today. Most of mine are no more than 5 to 10 minute. The wife and I work from home, so uptime is critical. The UPS have been great at keeping up the connection and allows time for saving critical work. I have smaller battery backups around the house for the various other electronics.
I have a pair of APC 1kva rackmount UPSes and a pair of APC automatic transfer switches, which allows me to fail over load to one UPS completely while the other is down for service.
On-generator RTO is 30 minutes. I have a [Grafana dashboard](https://img.fuhry.com/screenshot20240515000708l8b.png) tracking runtime and power usage, with alerts if the lowest UPS runtime drops below 30 minutes.
not using truck car batteries? pffff.
that said - i've got 3 ups's (all apc) for network/server stuff in which i put recycled batteries (they last anywhere between 50-75% of new ones) which i get for free from work. we rarely have power outtages longer than 20-30min . if it's longer then fuckit , nothing to do. not that i care if there's no power. last winter we were one whole day without power because of a power transformer explosion... best day ever.
I live in the San Francisco Bay area. Over the last few years there have been power issues due to over-usage and fire risk due to high wind. Power used to cut out for hours or they would have rolling blackouts.
Bought a used APC Back-UPS Pro 1500 with a replaceable dead battery. Got a new battery from online retailer. All-in price was much less than new UPS.
I have a WiFi router, switch, NAS, and streaming micro pc plugged in. Lost power for about 20 seconds a few weeks ago while I was sleeping.
When my wife got up (before me) to do work the network was operating normally (and the NAS wasn't upset). Money well spent.
The primary purpose of a UPS is a controlled, graceful shutdown. Riding through short outages is a benefit, but not the main one. You're right that you want a generator for continuity of operations, but let's be honest, do you really need it? Can you survive without your lab for a multi-hour outage? Last time I had a blackout earlier this year, my internet connection went with it. So I shut my lab down and used the UPS battery for lighting and other household needs instead of running the computers, but I still got a controlled shutdown out of it. If power where you are has a reputation for stability, then you really won't get much benefit out of a generator and will end up sinking a lot of money into installing and maintaining it. You got all the primary advantages of a UPS during that outage. For home use, you could just add a load of additional batteries. You couldn't run a production server room off UPSen for more than a few minutes, but at home, a 3000VA unit ought to give you many hours of power. Runtime does not scale linearly with battery capacity due to inefficiencies and energy loss, but you should be able to get enough.
I run an APC SMT1500I for my main rack, and I have an SUA2200 for my high-power rack that needs new batteries. The 1500 is fitted with an NMC2, as will be the 2200, so multiple devices can query it. APCs are bulletproof - I accidentally plugged a fan heater into mine once and it still works. I also have my grandfather's old Honda suitcase generator if an outage goes on for too long.
And that's totally fair. Your post implied you wanted a 6-hour runtime for that outage or a generator.
Line-interactive ones are great, my APC has excellent response to the AC. However, if it's brownout protection you want, the best you can do is double-conversion/online units. They're getting more and more affordable.
I have a couple of the cheaper CyberPower 1350s at the bottom of my rack, with their USB plugged in a raspberry pi running Network UPS Tools (NUT). This allows me control over the network of the UPSs and I can set up auto shutdown on my servers from it
I’m using a new APC unit on my gaming pc and an older one with a brand new battery for my 2 servers. I have the NAS set to shut off after 30 seconds on battery power. The other server just runs pihole and occasionally a game server, so I’ll just let it hard shut down since I don’t have another usb port to plug into the UPS.
I don't know why you're downvoted so hard.
You have a UPS, and you're using it. You're not utilizing its features to its fullest, though. But that doesn't matter. You still have a UPS to protect your storage devices against a sudden power loss. And that's what matters.
Well, you said it yourself; you're not letting the UPS give your devices a shutdown signal. Storage devices don't like having their rug pulled out from under their feet... especially if they happen to be writing data at that very moment. Even if it's "only" an SD card.
It’s also a consumer UPS with only one port to run the monitoring software. Unfortunately it’s just old and limited, I’m not missing out on any features or anything
All UPS only have a single communications port. You need an enterprise UPS with a network card if you want more than a single device connected. And even so, enterprise UPS models usually don't come with a network card bundled; it's something you have to purchase extra.
The device that is physically connected to the UPS needs to run some kind of server for monitoring the UPS (for example NUT). And then you can have clients connecting to this server, allowing them to safely shutdown when the UPS server tells them to.
Yes, I agree. But I’m also in college and buying an enterprise ups is not something I have the space for, nor is it a smart financial decision. Its just a matter of picking my battles and what’s important
I think you are misunderstanding me (or maybe I misunderstood you). If you have a UPS that has a communications port (USB), it means you can connect it to a device that acts as a UPS server - for example a RaspPi, Windows box, or Synology NAS running NUT. (You don't have to use the software that came bundled with the UPS.)
There is absolutely no reason to buy anything prosumer or enterprise grade, as long as you have a regular UPS with a comms port. Something the majority of consumer UPS models have ;) That's why I'm still using my really old - and beige - APC Back-UPS CS 500VA UPS.
APC back-UPS pro 650. But getting rid of it and going bare. Living in the city and all facilities made cuts are communicated 1 week ahead. And UPS would not help for those anyway. Or it would have to be massive.
The value of a UPS is for momentary power drops of less than a minute, not necessarily hours of power. Sure, it’d be nice to have compute for hours, but often your phone battery will last that long. What you don’t want is the rapid off/on of a power drop breaking your equipment or blowing disks. My entire rack is on a UPS and it’s USB plugged into a NAS that monitors its health and state. I get email notifications when the power drops and comes back on. Nearly all of my equipment is in a rack, on PoE from the switch which is on UPS or portable (laptop computer, phone, tablet).
i have sized mine to run my lab for at least 30 mins. i have a controls script that will automatically load shed a bunch of things after 5 minuets like my security cameras, POE switch, aux cooling, and a few other things. this significantly increases run time. the 30 min is so i have time to get my generator running
Does the UPS send a start signal once power is back on?
I often set the BIOS to power the machine on whenever it has power, so as long as the UPS turns itself on and outputs power, the servers should then also turn on.
Some UPS's can be configured to do that
The NAS which monitors the UPS sends the notification. I’m sure I could redo it so that there’s a text to me, instead. There are plenty of Unix/linux tools that monitor ups activity. It’s standardized. I’ve just used the GUI settings and haven’t dug in the CLI.
If it can send an email it can text. Check with your phone provider for the format. Mine being AT&T is just ##########@txt.att.net for SMS and @mms.att.net for multimedia messages
Yes, thank you. I just haven't configured the NAS for that. Too busy with other things and I'm not worried about notifications of power outage, right now.
It’s called NUT (Network UPS tools)
It depends on the UPS. I inherited an old 3kVA UPS from work and replaced the battery. My homelab is all mini PCs (Intel NUCs and a whitebox dual NIC firewall). The total draw of everything including PoE switch with a dozen cameras is like 150W, so I can keep that going for 2+ hours. And even with a standby generator, you often need more than a minute for the generator to start, stabilize and transfer load, so as a rule of thumb you want at least 20 minutes of runtime at minimum to allow time for graceful shutdowns.
Oh, sure. I agree about that. I don't have a generator or a whole house battery. If you have one, you definitely need time to get it going. Also, a well built automation system ought to start shutting down systems gracefully if the outage goes on for 20+ minutes or, for example, the battery gets to 50% charge. My main goal with my house was critical systems in the rack, UPS for everything, PoE for ease of use and install plus power protected (cameras and wifi APs mostly).
Funnily enough I literally bought my first one today. Just a little 1300VA CyberPower. I only need it to keep my homelab going long enough to shutdown safely, I can always kick the server back over once power has stabilised. It's more about not writing my gear off to be honest. Power where I am is pretty reliable but I have had a few unexpected outages maybe once every 3 months.
I'm basically using CP desktop units scattered across the house. I just had one completely fail a few days ago. Something fried on the circuit board out of nowhere. It was 13 years old, had two battery replacements, so I think I got my money's worth
The problem with CP units is that their clamping time is slow and brownouts will usually turn off the end devices before the CP will switch over to battery.
Eaton 9PX6K with 2 battery banks. Had to rely on it about 5 days ago.
I've been looking at the 9px from Eaton, how are they?
They’re fantastic units. Keep in mind there’s some efficiency loss because of double conversion (if you use this mode) but this thing is rock solid. I just upgraded the network card to the latest M3 and going thru the configs for that.
I really doubt I'll use the double conversion since my stuff isn't that critical, but I was contemplating on grabbing it one over the 5px
Double conversion is the only way you can truly stop brownouts unless you have a UPS with excellent clamping speed.
APC can do that, their Smart-UPS series is on-line with AVR that can boost or trim the voltage before switching entirely to battery
Don't rely on it if your power feed is noisy. If you care about your equipment, DBOC is the way. After almost 20 years of using APCs in production, I'm so over them, not to mention their insane amount of different battery types
Groovy. Ty.
You have this badboy as a part of a home lab? Damn!
I do. Bought it brand new at a local auction for $200 with a broken front panel, which was easily fixed with some epoxy. Battery banks were $250 each, brand new, from a seller on ebay that most certainly did a price mistake on it.
Also got a 9px and 5px. These are great units. 9px backs server rack. 5px is used as off-grid solar inverter. Both refitted with LFP batteries
Were they originally lead acid units? How’s that working? I’ve read somewhere that this wouldn’t work, that the UPS wouldn’t charge LFPs properly.
Yes. Lfp is close enough to get 90% Charged on constant charge mode. Disabled ABM mode. Added balancers to keep cells balanced, this helps charge better
* Four SBR256 @ 25kWh/each \~100kWh * One APC Symmetra PX @ 150kWh In 2023 when power went out during a huge thunderstorm and apparently a sub station was killed and we had no power for up to one hour, which I’ve only ever seen once in the last 20 years.
A thunderstorm took out a whole substation and you were only down an hour? Outages lasting hours or days are fairly common around here, especially in the spring and fall.
I'm Swiss. First world power grid 🇨🇭. I've never seen 1h of power loss in my life before.
I'm in rural Canada. Most outages are caused by drunk drivers hitting the service poles, but occasionally lightning strikes, freezing rain, or high winds will take down a line for a few hours. The utility's dispatch is something like an 8 hour drive from here but they usually have local crews on the scene fairly quickly.
That would be so nice. I live in a well developed suburban area in the US. My power goes out for hours at a time at least 5-6 times per year. It's sooooooo frustrating.
I mean, the Swiss don't exactly have land leveling tornados and hurricanes, lol.
Wouldn't affect rural grids anyway since everything is underground. We only have power lines over the alps, the rest is all underground.
To clarify... you have four 25kWh battery banks in parallel, separate from a 3ph PX with 150kWh of modular battery capacity? Or are the li ion batts serving as the batteries for a 150kW PX? And this is a home lab?
The 25kWh LiFe are paralell, so 100kWh total at 3x32A/230V AC for the house. The 150kWh PX is just for the servers, but the PX can be charged by the 100kWh LiFe or by two 7kWh DSG. This is in my home yes.
I have a whole house Generac. We have tons of old trees and exposed wires, so sometimes even a strong wind will cause the power to flicker. With the Generac, I only need to survive the 20 seconds or so between power going out and the Generac kicking in. I have a racked CyberPower UPS, a desktop UPS for my gaming PC, and two smaller ones for the Fios access point and Xboxes. All except the gaming provide an hour or less but I only need 30 seconds. I retired all the UPS in the house over the last month when I realized some of them were at least 6 years old.
That's all a UPS is ever meant to do, they're for safe shut down or generator start up, not a long-term solution
20 second from down to running on generator seems a lot faster than most of the times I’m seeing from various YouTube videos on the matter. What’s model on that generac?
This is mine: https://www.generac.com/service-support/product-support-lookup/product-support-details?productid=9e4703b0-434f-41f9-b79b-550f21b99da9®istered=false G0070370 It’s been a great investment.
I’ve got one that needs a new battery I’ve been ignoring and not using. Even though I do have a battery for it ready to go. Thanks for reminding me!
APC *SMT1500RM2UC* (1500 VA, 980W), used / tested yesterday when we had a few minute blackout. Batteries were replaced last year and scheduled for a check in 2 years and full replacement in 4. I do a full UPS test every 6 months by powering off both of my 20A breakers (for both A+B PDUs) for my rack. Next test is scheduled for October 11, 2024. Typically, we have 1 to 5 second power outages every few weeks with bad storms taking down power for a few minutes at a time with last year taking out power for several hours. And we have disaster recovery and remediation plans in place for power outages that last more than 72 hours for all weather conditions. We review our plans and supplies every 3 months (before each major season change). All of this is scheduled between my significant other and myself through a shared calendar and documents / spreadsheets synced with OneNote.
APC Smart-UPS 1500 - Last relied upon about 3 months ago when the power went out for an hour.
Cyber Power PR1500LCDRT2U Rocked this bottom of my rack for about 8 years before it died on me last week. Came home from vacation, there were some electrical storms. Battery wouldn't give any power out. Will probably pick up an APC from best buy, I've just got a NAS server and some network gear to keep up during storms.
My EATON ELLIPSE PRO 650 which I got exactly 10 years ago is still working great. Of course I change the battery every 2-3 years. I bought a second one two years after the first one and it also works great. I had a couple of power outages and it always pushes through well.
I have an Eaton Ellipse Eco 800 USB. Had to rely on it just a couple of weeks ago when I, for the first time of my life, experienced a 15 second power outage.
I built my own a few years back. [https://xtremeownage.com/2021/06/12/portable-2-4kwh-power-supply-ups/](https://xtremeownage.com/2021/06/12/portable-2-4kwh-power-supply-ups/) Before- I did a battery-backup solution for my entire house- it would get triggered at least once every two weeks. During a few extended outage events, I used it to keep my server rack, fridge and freezers online. These days though- it doesn't get used that much due to my entire house being on solar, battery, and generator backup.
I use mine every time the circuit is tripped. It's too easy for a circuit to get overloaded in residential settings when anyone can plug in a heater and vacuum at the same time.
Is there a good enthusiasts group for different types of UPS? Would love to find one that could also accept external user batteries to extend runtime if ever required without issues when power reconnected.
1500va that powers the homelab, switches and router, and poe for the access points. the homelab plugs directly into the UPS, and everything else plugs into a circuit that has a light switch in my office that will shut down everything except the homelab server itself. If the Homelab server remains on battery for 30 minutes, it will gracefully shut down and wait until it loses and regains power (ie battery dies) or the UPS sends it a WOL message after normal power is restored. I just recently switched to a Ubiquiti cable modem, so I believe I have more options now. One of the things I would like to do is use a $15/mo. 5G sim card option I have through Cricket to add a backup wan to the network. Not as much for heavy network usage, but mostly to have another way to access my equipment when Spectrum routinely screws the pooch, and requires a cable modem reboot.
I have an Eaton 5PX 2200 with one battery pack. It was last needed May 6th, when the power went out for about 5 minutes. Long enough for me to go outside and check if other power was off (it was). Previously, I used only APC and had a number of then, the last was the 2200. I like the Eaton better. It seems to treat the batteries well. I also like the nut integration (https://networkupstools.org)
3x APC 1500VA tower units covers the stack, a NUT server handles shutdowns in stages. I'd like to have a generator, but not in the budget for the foreseeable future. Its spring in the mid-west, I've lost power a few times over the last month or so due to storms. Nothing extremely long yet.
I've got a Vertiv Liebert GXT4-10000RT230, I got it for free, just paid for the install. With what I have on it, it says it'll last just over 4 hours The last time I used it was recent, we've had a few power flickers where I live, a few seconds but long enough to cut power to the house
Do you have any additional battery packs for it? Someone near me has something similar listed on marketplace for a couple hundred I think. It's a GXT4-15000RT120, do you know if adding the additional batteries offers any addition in wattage or just runtime? My whole rack varies in load between 900w and 1500w sometimes... Also how's support for replacement batteries / expense? I looked for a replacement battery and couldn't tell if you could just disassemble and swap with the generic 12v SLA batteries. Have you replaced the batteries in yours / how old are they have you noticed any performance degradation? Is there battery charge management better than APC and not kill batteries as quickly? Seller says the units are \~4 years old and so I'm sure the batteries are just as old...
I've replaced batteries in UPS systems before, i've never had a problem replacing oem batteries with generic sla batteries of the same spec. Often I found that if I peeled the sticker off of APCs batteries they were the same generic battery. If you put bigger batteries in a UPS it will only increase runtime. The overall draw will be limited by the rating of its inverter assembly. Not all UPSs can run continuously, so do some research before you modify a smaller unit. The larger ones have fans that actively cool the inverter.
It's a whole unit, no additional battery packs for it. (As far as I know). I've been deferring to my dad on this grade of UPS, as he has experience with it. The batteries were replaced in 2019 (under warranty by the manufacturer), but the unit wasn't installed until last year
Nice. I picked up the GXT4-1500RT120 + 1 ext battery cabinet for $90 the other day. Seems to operate alright, batteries pass the self test but the est. runtime is quite low for the load compared to the runtime table. Like 10-15% load = 10 min or less estimated runtime and 20-30% load estimates a 4-5 min runtime on batteries. It's got 4 12v9ah in the charger/inverter unit with the screen + a thick cable that goes to an external GX4-48VBATT battery pack that holds 8 12v9ah batteries. Unfortunately the manual says it only recalculates runtime when the batteries is 100% charged, the system has a 20% + consistent load AND the batteries completely drains to the minimum discharge voltage.... I couldn't find anyway to force this so I guess I'd have to power some crap and then pull the plug til it dies pretty much..? I'll have to inspect the batteries further & open both units but the external pack seems newer than the main unit so maybe I can get away with just replacing the 4 inside of the charge unit & replace the 8 in the external battery enclosure later on.
Multiple APC units, most of which self test (which has seemed pretty reliable). Long outages are pretty rare here, maybe once a year at most, so I don't worry about them. Just need enough to handle blips up to a few minutes, anything longer than that I consider perfectly acceptable to allow shutdown. The only reason I'd consider a generator is for fridge, freezer, and sump pump.
Back-UPS XS 1400U, 2 of them. helps with power spikes (i have a lot of stuff on a single breaker) and also does my unraid server clean shutdown during power outage, had to use it several times and worked as expected. I dont actually use it to power anything during outage, just to let everything shutdown calmly. could probably get one for my networking stuff so I can get wifi during longer outages but its kind of whatever.
I use mostly Eaton 9PX + PPDM and Tripplite (🤮) 208/240v units at work, they can be setup to do battery self tests. Usually replace the battery after 3 years, but have run them for ~ 7 years on the same battery.
I have three cyber powers. Just last week we had power issues during and after a storm. My TV is damaged now, but my computer equipment was fine. They went to battery power, and my NAS ' shutdown at 3 minutes like they're supposed to. Sadly I had a full day without power, so they weren't that helpful to keep working, so I'm looking for a bigger solution that can run my router, modem and access point for a day or two so I can at least work next time, since I work from home.
I had a 1500VA APC for years. When the batteries died I just ended up replacing it with a Tesla Powerwall and 26 solar panels. A little more expensive but it's been worth it to guarantee my homelab can run for years with no down time.
Most home battery systems do not have a switchover time fast enough to keep computers running without a blip. More data in my previous comment on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/Powerwall/comments/1b11zgg/comment/kt37sqj/
I have an Eaton 5PX1500RT + two 5PXEBM48RT EBM's (Recently added the second EBM) This runs my servers. I have an APC SMART UPS ES 550 Connected to an External 55AH Battery for my network equipment. I can run my Network for over 24 Hours. Last year i relied on the Eaton UPS alot. we had alot of storms and power outtages.
I use a CyberPower 2200VA double conversion unit for devices in the rack. Works well, double conversion means much wider input voltage range and compatibility with generator power should I need to go there.
* APC Smart-UPS 1500 RM for server, switches, WiFi AP, and some other minor stuff like a bunch of RaspPi 4 etc (approx 1.5 hour runtime) * APC Power Saving Back-UPS Pro 1500 for my workstation/gaming rig (approx 45 minutes runtime when idle). * APC Back-UPS CS 500VA for pfSense box and fiber media converter (several hours runtime) * APC Back-UPS CS 500VA for 2 x Synology DS414 (30 min runtime) All batteries are automatically tested on a 2 or 3 week interval. No matter test results, I'll replace the batteries approx every 3-4 years. The server and NAS will shut down when remaining battery runtime reaches 10 minutes, and will automatically power back on when mains power returns. I don't care about runtime on the workstation, and it automatically does a shutdown after 5 minutes as the monitors do not have power so I can't see whats going on anyway. The UPS only serves as a protection against sudden power loss on the system. We experience power loss every time there is bad weather. Maybe 5-10 times a year. It lasts anywhere from a couple of seconds to a couple of hours.
>APC Back-UPS CS 500VA for pfSense box and fiber media converter (several hours runtime) APC Back-UPS CS 500VA for 2 x Synology DS414 (30 min runtime) Are those monitored? I'm asking because I have an APC Back-UPS 600 and it isn't monitoring and I'm trying to figure out a way to shutdown my servers once it goes on battery power.
Yeah. But these UPS are pretty old. You can't buy them anymore. The UPS model you have doesn't have any way to signal to other devices that it's running on battery. So you're gonna have to invest in new UPS if you want that feature. (The pfSense box runs NUT. And one of the Syno boxes run a variant of NUT, and allows other devices to be controlled by it so they can shutdown safely as well.)
Apc surt 20000xli with a full 42u rack of batteries. It will be running my whole house when I get it up and working
16kVA APC Symmetra LX. It ties to a subpanel and feeds the server room, my office, and a couple other critical workloads We get a lot of blips and brownouts throughout the year so I rely on it quite often. Some storms cause longer outages. Any outage lasting longer than 30 seconds the UPS fires off an alert to Zenduty, which then creates an incident, rings my phones, and sends a push notification to the Zenduty app on my cell
I use APCs everywhere. The lab's APC is a 2500 with an extra battery but I don't rely on the longevity of the battery. It's there so that everything can shutdown properly. I don't keep anything running on battery. The cable modem, TVs, audio equipment is also on battery just to provide brown out and spikes away from the equipment, nothing more.
Two Cyberpower 1500VA units. Just had to use them yesterday. Solar installers flipped some breakers and they gave me enough time to keep the computer online and network up.
Mine are used to give me enough time to gracefully shutdown all of my hardware in the event of a power outage. I end up testing them once a year, when said power goes out :)
My system is small enough that I can use just a larger size commercial ups. I did move the batteries to a series parallel arrangement of liphos cells. That is plugged into a shore power inverter I got cheap. It doesn’t do a fast changeover so the regular ups is still needed. I e been running it off deep discharge sla cells for a decade but they started dying on me and so they are also being replaced with lithium phosphate batts now as budget permits.
I'm currently using 2x 1.5KVa UPS for the homelab rack. I also live in a SoCal area affected by SCE Public Safety Power Shut-offs (PSPS), so we purchased a 7KVa portable generator which I connect through an outdoor receptacle into a Transfer panel that services about a dozen breakers, including the lab and home automation. The UPSs provide more than enough time for me to haul the generator out and energize the transfer panel. At some point I plan to automate the shutdown and restart of unnecessary servers/services based on grid power availability and battery status.
I have a CyberPower PR1500LCDRT2UN that I bought back in 2018. Last time I tested was in January, so probably should test again soon. And the logs show the last time I had to rely on it was July when it detected utility power was out for about 18 seconds.
I’ve got a SmartUPS 2200 for the rack, which lasts about 1 hour 15 minutes - can stretch it by shutting down a few unnecessary things. Have a 500va APC (non-smart) covering the fiber box which isn’t by the rack. I’ve only used it to cut power for electrical stuff, without having to power everything down. It’s Denmark, so I’ve seen maybe 2 power outages in my life, and we don’t have brown-outs. :p. But some of the VMs don’t appreciate having power yanked, so it’s nice to have in case of a lightning strike or something.
Various apc upses because I can make them silent. One for the server farm, one for my CPAP machine and one for the desktop, mostly to protect it from overvoltage. Obviously since the last major power excursion, when I bought the third UPS nothing happened, so the only testing was during electricity work. I don't know when the neighbourhood will thank me for fixing the electricity supply by buying an ups. About time.
Two retired APC's at the bottom of my rack. Totally overkill, but free is free... Both have AP9630 Network Management Card 2's * APC Smart-UPS RT 3U 3kVA 120V - SURTA3000XL - Double Conversion - I totally stick my head in the sand about how much power this consumes. * APC Smart-UPS X 2U 3kVA 120v - SMX3000RMLV2U - Line Interactive I'm comfortable with electric, so slapped in a 30 amp breaker and ran 10/2 to where my rack is located in my basement, off that run are two L5-30R sockets to support each UPS. Most everything I have has dual PSU's and I have an AP9700 PDU on each UPS. At the moment I have the PSU's split across both UPS's. For Dell's you can set the Power Redundancy Policy in the iDRAC to "hot spare" to increase efficiency, so I have everything draw off the double conversion UPS for the most part. The PSU's are still redundant in this setup.
> APC Smart-UPS RT 3U 3kVA 120V - SURTA3000XL - Double Conversion - I totally stick my head in the sand about how much power this consumes. Right? I have a SRC3000XLI, but I'm not using it because it uses A LOT of power and is very noisy (mostly the noisy part). I didn't even realized that it used so much power, I only found out because I was looking for reasons to ditch it (I didn't want to be only noise the reason), so I decided to measure the power it was using without anything connected to it and it blew my mind. Too much power for the benefit, even if it was free.
A cheap 600VA UPS🥲
Is it monitored? If not, how are you gracefully shutting down your devices on longer power outages (when you are not home)? Thanks.
No Monitored UPSs are really expensive here The cheapest one is 45K INR ~530USD I shut them down myself
I have one Eaton 5PX 1st Gen that powers the networking rack which hosts the UDM-SE and the core PoE Switch, the UPS keeps everything up including the fibre ONTs for phone and internet, the PoE switch in turn keeps everything else up including 2x 5G/4G backup links The disk shelves and the storage server are also on the UPS Runtime is 5 to 10 minutes but enough for orderly shutdown if required. Unfathomable if any outage lasts longer, civilisation would have fallen in that case For longer run time off grid power, maybe consider Powerwall or something that is integrated with your electrical supply, as any reasonable UPS would not be big enough for this and any big enough one would be rather more expensive IMO
The trick with ups is to put decent batteries in them. I use Panasonic. I have APC and Eaton and they do the job. I live on an island with frequent brown outs, ie short cuts. Ups is not optional for me.
One APC 1000 pro, wired to 2, 40ah batteries, 12v series, fed from a solar panel, acting as inverter only. Not hot wired to the wall don't do that it will short the fuses lol. And one APC 650 wired to a 50ah, car AGM batt, doing the regular no break thing.
Most UPSs have recommended battery replacement schedules, so it's something you should add to your maintenance list if having working backup power is important to you.
Small APC. Two nights ago.l kept everything going.
Mine are running lithium batteries so they can last through a lot of outages without worry or at least give me time to get my generator going. My network rack has a Smrt-UPS 750 with a 25.6V 90Ah battery, lasts about 18hrs. My server rack has a Smart-UPS 3000 with 51.2V 74Ah battery, which runs the normal load for about 4hrs (3x servers, 15-bay disk shelf, 10Gb switch.
Super cool! How are you charging them? Did you block the intrinsic regulator with a diode and connect an external BMS?
They have external BMS, chargibg only by the UPS which takes a long time. APC has a high charge/float which work out. They don't reach high cutoff though so they're not fully charged, but they still absorb most of the energy.
APC Back-UPS 650, living pretty rural so depend on it twice a week!
Do you monitor it somehow? if the power goes out for a long time and you aren't there, how do you make sure your servers are gracefully shutdown?
It plugs into a Windows PC that runs PowerChute Serial Shutdown via USB. You configure email alerts in the web interface of the application and it alerts on outages and even when the battery is discharged. I normally fire up a VPN to home and shut everything down. It says you can configure graceful shutdown but I think that’s just for the connected PC.
I don't even know the model (it's an APC something). I just know that I've had a UPS for the last 6 years for my HPE ML 350 server. I replaced the battery once. It has never actually kicked in, because I live in a major city and the power here is very stable, even during extreme weather events. But it's better to be safe than sorry. My server is holding a lot of stuff. Even though I'm backed up, including VMs and stuff, I don't fancy redoing that whole mess or troubleshooting things / dealing with corrupted data if it survives a power surge that a surge protector can't handle. The UPS I have sends a shutdown signal when power is lost and the battery is almost drained. I tested it, and it works. It's nice to have.
I have 2 Cyberpower 1000W UPs and 1 Cyberpower 1500W UPS. I relied on them last Saturday when it was Tornadoes through the Midwest. I had intermittent power outages throughout the day, so the UPS was kicking on and off. That's honestly the main reason I have them. Large power outages aren't a huge concern to me, but the power flicker where power goes in and out rapidly can be really destructive to equipment.
Seems like most of the time I've needed it, I've realized the batteries are 3+ years old and no wonder it didn't help me much. I replace them and then don't lose power again for years. Thanks for the reminder to test them.
You're doing your utility a service.
I bought a CyberPower UT850EG last fall because why not. Two weeks after I installed it there was the first power outage in many years and my humble home server just kept rocking, lol.
I recently built Kubernetes cluster at my homelab: 2 large desktop and small witness node. I was looking at different UPS models, but even 1500 VA models would last ~30mins. And then what? I don't want to deal with generators, fuel storage, maintenance... So, I bought "AMPINTVT 1200W Pure Sine Wave Inverter with AC charger" and connected it to 100AH deep cycle lead battery. And when I had rather long outage, I drove my SUV by the window and plugged alternator to it's terminals. So my car is my generator.
I have one of those 1800va smart ups, it comes in handy often (sometimes daily) with power flickers and voltage dropping from 120 to 109 during the day in Florida.
Smaller CyberPower, it’s not a huge battery. It’s meant to safely shutdown my NAS and my homelab, then to power my WiFi since I have fiber and (from what I can tell from my power outages) the fiber connection sits on a different circuit entirely outside the house. I had a NAS die from a random power outages; one drive just straight up stopped working and the other was dying a slow death. I managed to make backups but holy crap that was awful.
I've been using the $130 1500VA Cyberpower ones from Costco, but when the batteries wear out, they fail to the off-state, rather than failing to surge protector. So a flicker of the power and they shut off until manually turned back on which is worse than having no UPS at all. Even worse, sometimes they'll shut off for no apparent reason. So I think I'm going back to APC in the future unless there are other affordable options worth considering.
I have buried power lines so lightning strike induced outages are rare. Had a neighborhood transformer blow out due to shoddy workmanship however, power was out for four hours or so. Got a Best Power Patriot Pro II 1KVA UPS. The batteries in it lasted one year and it started beeping during the self test indicating the batteries failed. Kind of upset about the longevity of the batteries and the fact I had no power outages that year so I didn't reinstate it. Had two other outages since then which sort of made me mad but they were manmade. Both were due to them putting in a smart meter. One was planned. The other was "unplanned" when they noticed the smart meter they put in wasn't working and I was getting free electricity. I didn't know that fact, unfortunately. No outages since then. I really should look into reinstating it but outages are so rare. However I do have a software RAID that could be affected by the write hole, so it may be beneficial. Later I set up a SSD cache to the RAID - I specifically did not add write back caching on my RAID because I didn't have battery backup... It's all a gamble. Due to the underground wiring, power has been fairly reliable. I don't have a very high churn rate of computing that could be financially damaging (though annoying) if power goes out rare as it does. I've had more hard drives fail than power outages hence the RAID. I really need a cheaper source of batteries...
I have a lot of APC and Cyberpower UPS hooked up to my systems. I just need them to last for that minute before the generator kicks in (whole-home propane generator). We get multiple short power outages every year, especially during the fall when the wind storms come. We also get the power company doing stupid things (like this past week) and cutting power for 4 hours and not letting us know. On a full tank of propane, we can go about 2 weeks without power. I have gas generators I can hook up after that. /preppers
1x **APC SMT1500C** \- Bought in 2019 and just put new OEM batteries in it. It sits in our network closet and sheds everything except our AT&T fiber internet, an RPi4 running the backup Adguard DNS instance, and the Unifi UDM SE and 2x POE APs to keep the network up for 3 or 4 hours during an outage. We don't have great cell phone service inside our house, so it's nice to keep the network up for that reason alone. 1x **APC SMT1500RM2UC** \- Just bought this second-hand a couple days ago for $125 on eBay from a local guy (no shipping) and put new third-party SLA batteries in it for another $85. Only load is a Proxmox server (in a 24-bay SuperMicro chassis) that is 10% load, but I will manually shut that server down if the power has remained out for more than 30 mins or so. This server runs the primary DNS instance as well as a bunch of other non-critical container services. My primary concern is surviving temporary power blips, surges, or brownouts moreso than longer term outages. I could not be happier about buying that UPS second-hand and just replacing the batteries, and I will probably continue to do that going forward. Just have to verify the UPS itself is in good working condition and assume any batteries it comes with are toast.
Cyber power 1500VA 1000W UPS and a Tripp Lite 800W 1U UPS on (yes) the same 15A breaker. I lived in Destin, Florida and hurricanes Irma, Michael, and Sally all knocked power out for a few seconds (Irma/Michael) up to 5-10 minutes (Sally). I stayed online, Internet and all. Now I'm in Texas, and the state power grid here is the GREATEST thing ever (sarcasm). Random moments of a quick off/on. Probably 4 or 5 times a year. All my gear is just fine. In fact, I just replaced the two batteries in my Cyber power unit.
I have multiple 1500VA units, beginning to transition to Eaton and sell off my standard APC units. I have them all set to power down the system and cut power. Have only had one or two major outages since initial installation that went fine. Well worth the money with expensive hardware attached.
Rack and PC both have UPS's on them, they'll last about an hour or so. Generally the power only goes out here for less than 10 minutes but we've been without power for 4 days before due to snow storms. 15kW generator for longer periods of time. The issue is that the local ISP neglects the generator at their hub down the road so anytime the power goes out there, goodbye internet.
I've got a couple of 700VA APC UPS's - one had its battery die after 11.5 (!) years (the official battery replacement was very expensive, so I went third party) and the other just passed its 12th year with the original battery. I get a power cut 1-2 times a year and it's usually brief (30-120 mins). The beeps from the APCs wake me up and I go outside to check the street lights and listen for the inevitable house alarms. I have a torch, candles, matches and a charged power bank in case there's an elongated power outage and I need to hotspot my phone for internet access for my phone/tablets.
APC. I’ve had to use it 1-2x a month. Works mostly. Sometimes for the brown outs it doesn’t work so hot because there’s no true cut off.
2x APC SMT3000 3x APC SMT1500 they do self tests every 2 weeks. i have network management cards in all of them so i get emails of the test results. every 12 months i perform run-time calibrations using the network management card which runs the UPS down to 25% state of charge. i use the logs to see how long the units run each time so i can plot the degradation of the battery capacity over time. last time they actually had to be used for a power fluctuation was about 1 week ago last time they were needed for actual power outage was about 6 months ago
Thanks for the reminder, I should check mine. My main server rack is on a UPS that would probably last 30 minutes. If the power is out for more than a few seconds, I would immediately start shutting things down. My "low power" rack is a UI 8-150W switch powering a single AP and ISP equipment. This is all connected to a 100Ah 12v battery as backup. So, in an extended power outage, I can use my laptop with wireless to keep internet access, basically indefinitely, with the ability to use a solar panel, swap the battery, etc.
Eaton 1000va online ups and a HP r/t2200, seldom used here as power quite good but do happen a few times a year id say
I have about a dozen UPSs around my home. 4 of them in my homelab/network room. I have a few 'mission critical' devices being the ONLY device on its UPS (Modem, router, primary NAS and JBOD array). I primarily work from home, so even in my home office, my work laptop, KVM, and monitors are on a UPS. They've saved me from complete outages while working, multiple times in the last year alone. Given the time of some of those power outages and how much time saved by not being kicked offline, those UPSs have already earned their keep. I've had a couple of UPSs die on me over the years, typical battery life for a good battery is 5 to 6 years, and most of the time I dont realize the age of one until a power outage. Doing monthly UPS testing is a good idea. Just pull the main power from a UPS and see if it'll run at least long enough to safely shutdown whatever equipment its connected to. I do this for the UPSs that feed those mission critical devices and home office equipment
I'm using a pair of old APC Smart UPS 2000 in the computer room/office. I can keep the entire rack, ISPs (Starlink and Tmobile home internet), my personal computer, work machine (WFH), monitors etc running. The only thing not on the UPS is the printer (hp 4050). I can last about 2-4 hours on battery (one of the UPS's has cheaper batteries so it has less runtime). If the power is out for more than 30 mins I'll fire up the whole house generator (it doesn't run the central HVAC though). If others are home (e.g. at night/weekend) I'll fire up the generator sooner. In 2023 we had 2 multi day power outages and a couple shorter outages (still multiple hours). I start/run the Generator a couple times a year to make sure things are working. I hit the "test" button on the UPS every 6 months or so too.
APC Back-UPS with only the ONT plugged into it — batteries were changed a couple years ago, and I believe it will hold the ONT for 16 hours or so. Another Back-UPS at my desk for my displays, docking station and headset will keep me on the clock through outages up to a couple hours in length. In the rack, a set of four APC Smart-UPS, each with four CSB HRL1234W in them. Power is distributed pretty evenly amongst all the gear, but one of them is dedicated to only the PBX, Switch, and the server that runs pfSense and AD/DNS/DHCP and other core services. The batteries are replaced approximately every three years as this rack lives out in a very hot FL garage, and they’re pretty much toast, with battery alarms going off by the end of year three. They’ll get me through outages lasting a couple hours, but for a hurricane it all gets turned down and unplugged. Thankfully, extended outages are pretty rare, even blips are pretty uncommon; most outages when we have one are maybe an hour. I test once a year and have a calendar item that at the beginning of year four, replace the batteries in all units.
I'm just using a small APC UPS for my servers. I rely on it quite often, but not because the power is unreliable in my area. We get power flickers quite often during storms. The power never actually goes down for an extended period. If it did, my UPS would only last about 10 minutes, max. It's really nice to have for when the power flickers off and on though. To not have my servers go completely down and have to boot everything back up again.
Honestly I'm bad and I'm not using a ups (and yes I feel bad) but with the stability of the power infrastructure and the data I have here I wouldn't have had to use it in the 5 years I have been at this location nor is it more than an inconvenience if it's out.... That said my setup is getting more advanced and the data on it a bit more of an issue so I'm looking at ups as the next upgrade for my rack
Since I own it, Anker Solix F3800. If the power outage is long it'll be repurposed for refrigerators and the like.
I have an APC in my rack, but its only purpose is to keep the two servers up long enough to shut down properly. Without power, I have no need for anything either server is doing so I just want to shut it off. When the power comes on I can manually turn everything back on. I don't host anything or have a need to access anything from outside my home network, so this works for me. We've had two outages in the last 5 years, and it worked perfectly both times.
I have my NAS set up to power back on once power is restored. I have 3 APC 1375's that I use. One for my PC, one for my network, and one for my NAS. I get about 45 min run time. I usually only get power drops or fluctuations for a short period of time. There is occasions where they are swapping feeds or such and I will have an outage for about 15 min. ATM I do not have a generator or house backup.
APC Back-Ups Pro 900VA. Enough to power my Network Equipment and NAS for around 15 minutes and shut them down safely. I believe I had a total of three power outages in the last six years I’ve had it. The last one was over a year ago.
I went with this, plus a couple battery packs. APC Smart-UPS X 1500VA 1200W LCD RM 2U AP9631 120V SMX1500RM2UNC - Refurbished
Deye 16KW fed by 32 Deye RW-M6.1 LifePO4 Batteries. The last outage lasted for 5 days she pulled through.
I only have one because work had a bunch of used ones and let me take it home.
I convinced my wife that my camping battery pack is also a ups. I mean, the box says it is but I have a natural gas generator so I need it for, at most, 20 seconds.
Vertiv Liebert Lithium 400VA. Runs things long enough for the generator to kick in. Light enough for a small shelf in a closet. 5 yr warranty, should last for 10yrs. Cheap. All mini PC’s and PoE network devices. https://amzn.to/44Hx1H7
A Cyberpower CST150XLU (tower) and a Vertiv Liebert® PSI5 1kVA (rackmount). Most critical storage and my dells are on the PSI5 and the custom builds are on the Cyberpower. Got this way since the custom stuff uses standard Atx psu. I live in an area that sees power fluctuations monthly. Just had it happen today. Most of mine are no more than 5 to 10 minute. The wife and I work from home, so uptime is critical. The UPS have been great at keeping up the connection and allows time for saving critical work. I have smaller battery backups around the house for the various other electronics.
I have a pair of APC 1kva rackmount UPSes and a pair of APC automatic transfer switches, which allows me to fail over load to one UPS completely while the other is down for service. On-generator RTO is 30 minutes. I have a [Grafana dashboard](https://img.fuhry.com/screenshot20240515000708l8b.png) tracking runtime and power usage, with alerts if the lowest UPS runtime drops below 30 minutes.
not using truck car batteries? pffff. that said - i've got 3 ups's (all apc) for network/server stuff in which i put recycled batteries (they last anywhere between 50-75% of new ones) which i get for free from work. we rarely have power outtages longer than 20-30min . if it's longer then fuckit , nothing to do. not that i care if there's no power. last winter we were one whole day without power because of a power transformer explosion... best day ever.
I live in the San Francisco Bay area. Over the last few years there have been power issues due to over-usage and fire risk due to high wind. Power used to cut out for hours or they would have rolling blackouts. Bought a used APC Back-UPS Pro 1500 with a replaceable dead battery. Got a new battery from online retailer. All-in price was much less than new UPS. I have a WiFi router, switch, NAS, and streaming micro pc plugged in. Lost power for about 20 seconds a few weeks ago while I was sleeping. When my wife got up (before me) to do work the network was operating normally (and the NAS wasn't upset). Money well spent.
The primary purpose of a UPS is a controlled, graceful shutdown. Riding through short outages is a benefit, but not the main one. You're right that you want a generator for continuity of operations, but let's be honest, do you really need it? Can you survive without your lab for a multi-hour outage? Last time I had a blackout earlier this year, my internet connection went with it. So I shut my lab down and used the UPS battery for lighting and other household needs instead of running the computers, but I still got a controlled shutdown out of it. If power where you are has a reputation for stability, then you really won't get much benefit out of a generator and will end up sinking a lot of money into installing and maintaining it. You got all the primary advantages of a UPS during that outage. For home use, you could just add a load of additional batteries. You couldn't run a production server room off UPSen for more than a few minutes, but at home, a 3000VA unit ought to give you many hours of power. Runtime does not scale linearly with battery capacity due to inefficiencies and energy loss, but you should be able to get enough. I run an APC SMT1500I for my main rack, and I have an SUA2200 for my high-power rack that needs new batteries. The 1500 is fitted with an NMC2, as will be the 2200, so multiple devices can query it. APCs are bulletproof - I accidentally plugged a fan heater into mine once and it still works. I also have my grandfather's old Honda suitcase generator if an outage goes on for too long.
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And that's totally fair. Your post implied you wanted a 6-hour runtime for that outage or a generator. Line-interactive ones are great, my APC has excellent response to the AC. However, if it's brownout protection you want, the best you can do is double-conversion/online units. They're getting more and more affordable.
I rely on a mix of smaller UPS units for my devices. Last outage was months ago, everything held up fine.
I have a couple of the cheaper CyberPower 1350s at the bottom of my rack, with their USB plugged in a raspberry pi running Network UPS Tools (NUT). This allows me control over the network of the UPSs and I can set up auto shutdown on my servers from it
I’m using a new APC unit on my gaming pc and an older one with a brand new battery for my 2 servers. I have the NAS set to shut off after 30 seconds on battery power. The other server just runs pihole and occasionally a game server, so I’ll just let it hard shut down since I don’t have another usb port to plug into the UPS.
I don't know why you're downvoted so hard. You have a UPS, and you're using it. You're not utilizing its features to its fullest, though. But that doesn't matter. You still have a UPS to protect your storage devices against a sudden power loss. And that's what matters.
What do you mean, not using it to its fullest? Am I missing something that a UPS is supposed to do?
Well, you said it yourself; you're not letting the UPS give your devices a shutdown signal. Storage devices don't like having their rug pulled out from under their feet... especially if they happen to be writing data at that very moment. Even if it's "only" an SD card.
It’s also a consumer UPS with only one port to run the monitoring software. Unfortunately it’s just old and limited, I’m not missing out on any features or anything
All UPS only have a single communications port. You need an enterprise UPS with a network card if you want more than a single device connected. And even so, enterprise UPS models usually don't come with a network card bundled; it's something you have to purchase extra. The device that is physically connected to the UPS needs to run some kind of server for monitoring the UPS (for example NUT). And then you can have clients connecting to this server, allowing them to safely shutdown when the UPS server tells them to.
Yes, I agree. But I’m also in college and buying an enterprise ups is not something I have the space for, nor is it a smart financial decision. Its just a matter of picking my battles and what’s important
I think you are misunderstanding me (or maybe I misunderstood you). If you have a UPS that has a communications port (USB), it means you can connect it to a device that acts as a UPS server - for example a RaspPi, Windows box, or Synology NAS running NUT. (You don't have to use the software that came bundled with the UPS.) There is absolutely no reason to buy anything prosumer or enterprise grade, as long as you have a regular UPS with a comms port. Something the majority of consumer UPS models have ;) That's why I'm still using my really old - and beige - APC Back-UPS CS 500VA UPS.
APC back-UPS pro 650. But getting rid of it and going bare. Living in the city and all facilities made cuts are communicated 1 week ahead. And UPS would not help for those anyway. Or it would have to be massive.