UPS advise
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 3:07 pm
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
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