March 21, 201313 yr Hi folks. I'm building my first unRAID server (my first anything, actually) and assuming I pull it off I've got designs on an HTPC build later this year too. Both are going to be very low power and I'm wondering how beefy a UPS I would need to set auto shutdown to just power both down safely in the event of a power failure? Also I'm trying to figure out how I would set both to do that with the UPS? I know I can use the APCUPSD plugin for unRAID but for the HTPC I was leaning towards an openELEC build and I can't find that APCUPSD supports that. So could I still set up a master/slave shutdown sequence to it if it doesn't? I'm sure there must be other folks here who have this kind of setup so I'm just wondering the best way to go about it. As far as the battery requirement of the UPS, my server build is 6 hard drive mini ITX (running 3 3TB WD Reds initially) with an AMD C-60 (9w) CPU and a 400W PSU and all the HTPCs I'm considering are mini ITX also which I intend to fit any ivy bridge Celeron (55W), single SSD and probably a blu ray drive, all of which I should be able to run easily off a 150W Pico PSU. When I plugged those specs into the APC online calculator it pointed me to their 750VA as their smallest Back-UPS model I could go with but I'm wondering if their over-selling a bit on that I could just as safely go with the 650 or even 550VA, considering I won't be trying to run on the battery for any longer than just to initiate the auto shutdown sequence. (I've never owned a UPS before and I'm coming from a place where I'm still a little bit skeptical how much I really need one at all, so I certainly don't want to overpay for a bigger unit than I actually need). Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.
March 21, 201313 yr APC 1200 or 1500 from Costco work great with unraid and the monitoring programs available for unraid. Sent from my SGH-I727R using Tapatalk 2
March 21, 201313 yr My Cyberpower 625VA UPS works perfectly with UnRAID and apcupsd. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=24740.msg215051#msg215051 You won't be wanting to shutdown immediately if the power outage is one that lasts just a few seconds. My apcupsd install is configured for 300 seconds then shutdown, which I think is the default. So you want to ensure your system can be up and running for at least that long. While APC may be overselling a little bit, the 750 VA recommendation doesn't seem out of line at all. For most UPS in that power range the incremental cost to the next level up isn't very much. It's when you get to 1000 VA and above that you start to see price jumps that start to take your breath away. Rather than running these off one UPS, it may be easier to run off a couple 400 VA rated units. I think you'll find a lot more sales for the lower capacity UPS. Just stick with a known brand like APC or Cyberpower. Does OpenELEC need to have a shutdown? It strikes me as being one that can be powered off inelegantly, assuming all it is doing is playback. I say this because there doesn't seem to be much info available for an equivalent to apcupsd. Bottom line, I'd buy a 550 or 650 range UPS and see how long it can keep both systems running. apcupsd reports an estimate of how long the UPS can power the existing load, as below: APC : 001,034,0873 DATE : Thu Mar 21 08:38:41 AKDT 2013 HOSTNAME : Tower RELEASE : 3.14.3 VERSION : 3.14.3 (20 January 2008) slackware UPSNAME : Tower CABLE : Custom Cable Smart MODEL : CP625HGa UPSMODE : Stand Alone STARTTIME: Sun Dec 16 11:09:41 AKST 2012 STATUS : ONLINE LINEV : 120.0 Volts LOADPCT : 12.0 Percent Load Capacity BCHARGE : 100.0 Percent TIMELEFT : 48.5 Minutes MBATTCHG : 10 Percent MINTIMEL : 5 Minutes MAXTIME : 300 Seconds OUTPUTV : 120.0 Volts DWAKE : 000 Seconds LOTRANS : 096.0 Volts HITRANS : 140.0 Volts ALARMDEL : Always NUMXFERS : 1 XONBATT : Thu Feb 21 16:54:00 AKST 2013 TONBATT : 0 seconds CUMONBATT: 3 seconds XOFFBATT : Thu Feb 21 16:54:03 AKST 2013 SELFTEST : NO STATFLAG : 0x07000008 Status Flag SERIALNO : BFBB104.CN1.Q NOMINV : 120 Volts NOMPOWER : 375 Watts APCMODEL : CP625HGa END APC : Thu Mar 21 08:39:31 AKDT 2013 Bear in mind that the 48.5 minutes it reports is very optimistic. This UPS is just running my UnRAID server, which draws about 50 W. As batteries age their ability to deliver the promised power drops significantly.
March 21, 201313 yr Author Hi Chugiak. Thanks for the feedback. I did find your post earlier that you got APCUPSD to work with your CyberPower 625 and I really appreciate that you posted that since I was assuming I'd have to buy APC to control it through the unRAID plugin. And I take your point that the difference in price point is really only incremental until you get to 1000VA or higher so I may adjust my thinking on that. As for whether I really need to set up auto shutdown for on openelec HTPC, I suppose I may not now that you mention it. I just assumed it's always a risk for any computer to lose power without being properly shut down. But maybe the fact that I can't seem to find anything googling openelec + ups should be a clue to me that nobody else is concerned with this so maybe I shouldn't be either? Anyway at this point I think I'm inclined to just get something about the unRAID server only and worry about the HTPC later -- either not getting one at all or getting a separate UPS if I decide I still need the programmed shutdown feature after all (particularly if I decide to go with Windows instead of openelec).
March 21, 201313 yr I'm still in the "design phase" for my HTPC, but right now I'm looking at XBMCbuntu or OpenELEC. The underlying Linux OS supports being able to have one server tell another to shut down. So it's doable, but I say this without any specific knowledge as to implementation on these platforms. I expect setting up SSH keys on both systems would enable a script in UnRAID to send a command to the HTPC. For me, I've got an old APC UPS that needs a new battery and lacks a smart cable. I may just use it as a dumb UPS for my HTPC and figure out how to tell the HTPC to shut down from the apcupsd script. Or not.
March 21, 201313 yr I'm still in the "design phase" for my HTPC, but right now I'm looking at XBMCbuntu or OpenELEC. The underlying Linux OS supports being able to have one server tell another to shut down. So it's doable, but I say this without any specific knowledge as to implementation on these platforms. I expect setting up SSH keys on both systems would enable a script in UnRAID to send a command to the HTPC. If you're not using plex (and you're using XBMC/something else) ignore this I've not read any other post in this thread other than thing single post, so, if I missed some information previously mentioned, sorry, but:- Why not just use Ubuntu and plex? What I'm planning to do, I'll strip Ubuntu down a bit, then assign a script like the following to my start-up script:- export XBMC_HOME=/opt/plexhometheater/share/XBMC /opt/plexhometheater/bin/plexhometheater -d 30 -fs && sudo /sbin/shutdown -r 1 & And modify my sudoers file to contain:- plexhtpc ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown where "plexhtpc" is the user account, I'll give the account auto log-in access & done? It's even easier since Ubuntu will automagically keep my NVIDIA drivers in check (Using the "Alternative Drivers" option in system settings) and (based on plex forum) is the most supported distribution at this time.
March 21, 201313 yr I'm not sure I'm grokking the gist of Automatic's comment, but it does suggest that server-to-server shutdown is a relatively straightforward task, provided you're competent and comfortable twiddling the bits in a Unix-like system. This would come in handy in either of the following situations: 1) The UnRAID server and the HTPC are both plugged in to a single smart UPS. The UPS data cable is plugged in to a USB port on the UnRAID server. When apcupsd on the UnRAID server inititates a shutdown it also sends a command to the HTPC to shut down. 2) The UnRAID server is plugged in to a smart UPS and the HTPC is plugged in to a dumb UPS. Same thing applies, and the HTPC shuts down when it gets a command over the network to shut down. So with Automatic's suggestion as a starting point and a bit of RTFM it should be a walk in the park.
March 21, 201313 yr I'm still in the "design phase" for my HTPC, but right now I'm looking at XBMCbuntu or OpenELEC. My OpenELEC systems survive a sudden power down - I have no storage devices in them at all, no spinning disk, no flash. They boot over the network from the unRAID server and all the thumbnails, configuration, media files, etc are held on unRAID. Believe me, if there was a problem, I would have found it already - our power goes off at least once a day. As for shutting down one server from another .... I have a desktop m/c and my unRAID server connected to the same UPS, with the desktop powering down after four minutes and the unRAID server after five minutes.
March 21, 201313 yr PeterB, good to know about OpenELEC, especially if you boot off the network. As to your m/c and UnRAID server, could you expand on how that works? Do you have a custom data cable going from the UPS to both machines, or does one machine send a shutdown signal to the other?
March 21, 201313 yr PeterB, good to know about OpenELEC, especially if you boot off the network. As to your m/c and UnRAID server, could you expand on how that works? Do you have a custom data cable going from the UPS to both machines, or does one machine send a shutdown signal to the other? apcupsd includes server functionality. The UPS is connected to the unRAID server with the standard USB cable. The connection between my desktop machine and unRAID is purely over the network. On the desktop machine I have the following configurations: UPSCABLE smart UPSTYPE net DEVICE 10.2.0.100:3551 10.2.0.100 is the fixed ip address of my unRAID server. The rest of the configuration is just as it would be if the UPS was connected to the local machine.
March 22, 201313 yr apcupsd includes server functionality. The UPS is connected to the unRAID server with the standard USB cable. The connection between my desktop machine and unRAID is purely over the network. On the desktop machine I have the following configurations: UPSCABLE smart UPSTYPE net DEVICE 10.2.0.100:3551 10.2.0.100 is the fixed ip address of my unRAID server. The rest of the configuration is just as it would be if the UPS was connected to the local machine. Sonofagun, you learn something new every day. That is freaking ELEGANT! Thanks so much for the explanation.
March 22, 201313 yr apcupsd includes server functionality. The UPS is connected to the unRAID server with the standard USB cable. The connection between my desktop machine and unRAID is purely over the network. On the desktop machine I have the following configurations: UPSCABLE smart UPSTYPE net DEVICE 10.2.0.100:3551 10.2.0.100 is the fixed ip address of my unRAID server. The rest of the configuration is just as it would be if the UPS was connected to the local machine. This is what I do too but I use the DNS name of my unRAID instead of IP. You also have to make sure your network is on the UPS for this to work. Just run APCUPSD on both machines, connect the UPS communication cable (USB) to one of the machines (unRAID is the most important), and configure the other machine APCUPSD to use a "net" connection.
March 22, 201313 yr You also have to make sure your network is on the UPS for this to work. Yes, of course this is important, and I forgot to mention it. Any network devices, such as the switch(es) and/or router, which are required to maintain the network connection between the two machines, must also be running from UPS.
March 23, 201313 yr Author You also have to make sure your network is on the UPS for this to work. Yes, of course this is important, and I forgot to mention it. Any network devices, such as the switch(es) and/or router, which are required to maintain the network connection between the two machines, must also be running from UPS. This is exactly what I was hoping to hear. Thanks! I was on the fence between the Cyberpower 625 (375W) and 825 (450W) models but now that I know I can put an HTPC on it and set up auto shutdown for that too I guess I pretty much have to go with the 825. Which is fine since I was leaning that way anyway. A little more peace of mind and I like the fact that the battery is replaceable where it it isn't on the 625. Thanks everyone for the input!
March 23, 201313 yr ... but do consider whether it's really necessary to put your HTPC system on the UPS - as I say, it's definitely not a problem for my OpenELEC systems. I see little purpose in having the media players running when the TV has already gone off. The only, very minor issue, is that the system doesn't remember the position it had reached in playback when the power is cut.
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.