UPS advise

[FireFox]

I'm looking at getting myself a descent UPS for my file server and networking gear.

Ideally what I would like to achieve is maximum up-time for my file server and the network gear to keep the server, wired LAN, WiFi and internet up during power outages. The power outages isn't your regular power trips (I'm currently covered for say 10 minutes for those) but possible load shedding from the power company . We had this back a year or so and the outages was usually round about 1-2 hours but never more than 3 hours. I would like to try and achieve up-time of say 2-3 hours if at all possible as what I intent to do should a power outage be bestowed upon us like the other day without notice is to switch from my main pc to my Slate which have a battery life of about 3 hours if fully charged and my dad can switch to his laptop with a battery life of about 1 hour.

So what I figure is I need to determine my servers current power consumption (watts) as the UPS's I'm looking at have a scale where it can indicate approximate up-time vs load (watts).

Would it be a fair assumption to say I can use this tool to approximate the maximum load of my server?

If so, my following questions is if I look at this tool it is more geared towards max load calculations to make sure you get a strong enough PSU. There is an option to select the system load but it only goes as low as 60%. What would you all say is the load on a file server that is basically just a central access point for my data and which is constantly running only 2 programs for communication purposes. PS the CPU usage in task manager usually average below 10% (It's a basic setup no fancy setup running besides the RAID10 setup if you want to count that). The reason is when I use this calculator to see what my server computes to it gives me about 182 watts (minimum) and 232 watts recommended.

So I guess an save figure to work on is the 232 watts for the server at regular use or maybe even less?

The following devices is where I'm in the dark regarding their power consumption as they are the other components I need to keep alive:

Router - Billion 7401VGP_MW1
Switch - Netgear GS724T
Access Points - DAP 1353 and DWL 3200 (both D-links)

The other components are my LCD's if possible but that isn't a must to be running the whole time thou, probably just long enough to switch off the one pc and then turn them off. 3 LCD's per pc (main pc & server) but if I can run the 3 on the server that would be optimal.
4x LG W2234S
2x LG L1953T

Server is connected to the 2 19" and 1 22"

What I have done at this point to keep everything alive during those annoying power trips is to connect 2 multi-plugs to my old UPS (a 600VA I think or lower even, I know it can't power my main pc because it freaks out as soon as I enter games) and I have the LCD's on the one multi-plug and my router and access points together with an amp (which will of course be switched of during power outages) on the other. Then my server and main pc is currently shares a Proline 1000VA UPS and my Netgear switch is also connected to this UPS. (Ps I have not yet tested the max up-time of the Proline in this setup as yet)

Now what I was thinking is to to maybe get myself a dedicated UPS for the server and or the network gear depending on the load it will total too or reconfigure the setup a bit.

The unit I'm currently looking at is the following SUA1500RMI2U and if I'm to guess an approximate load of all the above at roughly 300 watts this unit should give me power for an hour or so.

I can always rather opt to reconfigure my two current UPS's as well. Which brings me to another question of something I haven't yet tested or tried is will the up-time of the two units be prolonged if say I were to keep the two multi-plugs connected to the small UPS but instead of connecting its power source to the main power I connect it to the 1000VA UPS so that is will first run down the 1000VA unit which will have a longer lifespan than the small UPS and then the small unit will run down? I know the max I got out of the small unit for just the router and AP's was about 15 - 20 minutes during a previous power failure (max I ravaged on it when a pc was connected was 5 - 8 minutes ). This way I might be able to stretch the total up-time even more as then the SUA1500RMI2U will be dedicated for the server only and bringing down the load and raising the up-time a little (e.g. say 200 watts which is about 1h30m)

Anyways I'm not looking at spend "big" money on this as this unit is about the max I'm comfortable on spending for this...luxury

Also remember this is for my home use but I'm doing this with my workplace in mind as well as I've been asked to look into this for them as well but not as a big priority. Of course the offices power consumption on the pc that is acting as a file server is far less than mine as it is a basic basic pc with an external HDD and networking gear so I'm thinking this unit might fit their bill to achieve 2-3 hours up-time as there are a couple of laptops some of the employes can use so that most of them will be able to continue working even if the power fails.

[EDIT]
Then again for a tad bit more and dropping the rack mount version (which I would have liked, but boiling down to common sense and the facts that this will double the figures of up-time at a fraction of the cost) I could look at this one SUA2200I

[Krom]

I have a 1500VA battery backup attached to my desktop PC, and a second one that powers my monitor and network equipment. Each unit has two 9 amp-hour batteries. The backups themselves have built in monitoring and can report to the PC how much load is on them as a percentage of the maximum (which is 830 watts) and this PC runs at about 17-22%, so around 150-200 watts. The run time I usually get with a fresh set of batteries is about 35-40 minutes, if you want to go beyond that it is probably time to think about getting a generator instead of relying purely on batteries. Also keep in mind the run time figures given on the APC website, or from any other battery backup manufacturer are often greatly exaggerated or would only happen under nearly perfect conditions.

For your other question: Daisy chaining batteries so one feeds the others down the line is a bad idea, the lead acid batteries that most backups use require a constant "float" charge in order to maintain the best operating condition which would rapidly pile on inefficiency in the whole line.

Also if you want to find an accurate number on how many watts/VA the stuff you want to power uses, consider buying one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6882715001

[Canuck]

Chaining up UPS's is a recipe for disaster. The UPS is designed to power a computer switching power supply not an inductive load like another UPS. The transformer in an UPS wants to see a pure sine wave from the utility line, not a stepped sine wave or trapezoidal wave. The transformer will saturate, overheat, and you will let the smoke out if you chain up UPS's.

[AceCombat]

i run a APC Back-UPS BX1000G 1000VA 600W SmartUPS at home for my network gear, 42" TV and PC


the most ive pulled running a Buffalo N Router, Ubee Cable MODEM, my rig itself and a 42" LCD TV is about 73% total of 600W, even while playing BC2 and other high graphics power games

[Isaac]

I thought it was funny how one of my previous employers had a supervisor that loved putting everyone on those UPS units. Number of power outages during the year? Zero. Number of failures due to UPS sucking by nature? About one every few months. I told my boss I refused to be put on one. Never had a problem.

[Krom]

I thought it was funny how one of my previous employers had a supervisor that loved putting everyone on those UPS units. Number of power outages during the year? Zero. Number of failures due to UPS sucking by nature? About one every few months. I told my boss I refused to be put on one. Never had a problem.

Either he was using horrible quality / chronically underpowered units to have problems like that or some idiot plugged their laser printer into them.

[Tunnelcat]

I've got my gaming rig and net switch/router/modem setup on a 1500w APC unit and another other computer on a 500w APC unit. Both of those puppies have saved my bacon many times. We tend to have unreliable power at times and we get all sorts of unplanned little power "blips", at any time of the day, no matter what the weather is doing. It's those "blips" that can really screw up a computer. Very inconvenient and potentially destructive to my systems and I've got a lot invested in them, so the UPS protection is well worth it.

[FireFox]

Okay so Daisy chaining is a big no no and it would then most likely be better to just work that little ups out of my setup in total and put the network gear on the 1000va I already have instead.

My other question now is how much difference would there be between the APC 2200/1500 vs another brand (up-time wise that is, as it looks like some of the other brands I looked at doesn't give all that much info like load % battery % etc. like the APC does but how important is that at the end of the day?) Reason I'm asking this is that the APC2200 sounds ideal for my needs (on "paper" that is, but like you said Krom that needs to be taken with a pinch of salt) but looking at other brands (Proline and PowerCom in specific) they also have 2000VA or even 3000VA units at the same price range at the APC I spotted. Making me think that if I can pick up the 3000VA unit at the price of a 2200 or less it makes more sense then but it boils down to up-time for me.

Anyone had any experience with those other listed brands? I know my 1000VA is a Proline and it hasn't given me any issues but I still need to test its actual up-time for my main system vs up-time for just the network gear. Should probably get round to testing that now shouldn't I

[Krom]

APC units are easily some of the best in the industry without being too terribly expensive, the ones I have used report the battery level in a very consistent linear fashion and are generally easy to work with. The load % readings, along with the frequency and voltage of the AC power source should be available in the vast majority of units from any brand through the USB / Serial data connection to the PC, some units will have that information on the front display but it isn't a feature I'd go out of my way looking for.

I have some belkin units and while they work as advertised, the battery indicators on them are pretty terrible (instantly drops to ~70% battery level when they switch over from AC and automatic power cutoff point is around 20-25%). Although terrible monitoring is common in pretty much every low end brand and even in the cheap units from the better brands. The only reason I have them is because I grabbed them for dirt cheap during a massive sale. Despite the terrible monitoring; they do deliver a competent run time. I've seen one power a PC for 10 minutes and then continue to hold all the way through a 7 hour outage when left running my network gear (which was necessary to keep the voip and cordless phones alive). It also helps a bit that when the original 7.5 amp-hour battery sets wore out I replaced them with compatible 9 amp-hour batteries which got me a few more minutes run time with a PC load on them. I'd say they are easily passable for powering items that are convenient to have running during an outage but not absolutely critical. For the critical stuff that you need to know to the last minute how much power is left, I'd stick to a unit with better monitoring.