I have a rather small unRaid server with five drives (2 TB each) and one cache drive. I want to protect it with a UPS, but don't know much about which type might be acceptable. I assume it should be from APC to take advantage of the APC daemon...right?  Would something like the following be acceptable?

 

http://www.amazon.com/APC-BE750G-Saving-Battery-Back-UPS/dp/B000Z80ICM

No -- I would not buy any UPS without AVR.

 

Note that most major brand UPS units will work fine with the UPS support provided by the APC daemon.

 

This is a good choice:  http://www.amazon.com/CyberPower-CP1000AVRLCD-Intelligent-Series-Mini-Tower/dp/B000QZ3UG0/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1399954947&sr=8-11&keywords=apc+ups

Thanks for this.  I'll likely purchase this very unit. 

 

I don't know a thing about UPS's so I'll be learning as I go here, but my expectation is that this unit will allow the unRaid Server to fall over to UPS power when it encounters a power outage and then safely power down the unRaid Server.  Additionally, and I'm not sure if this is asking too much, would the Daemon or the UPS be smart enough to power the unRaid Server back up once the main power has been restored?

 

Thanks again.

The UnRAID server can be set (in the BIOS) to automatically power on when power is restored.  I do not know if that specific UPS supports automatic turn on when power is restored or not.

 

Oh wow, thanks.  This is exactly what I'm trying to avoid, that is, avoid purchasing a UPS that doesn't have all the bells and whistles that I could have possibly taken advantage of.  Is there any kind of consensus out there on a specific unit most people are using for their unRAID server? 

Thanks for this.  I'll likely purchase this very unit. 

 

I don't know a thing about UPS's so I'll be learning as I go here, but my expectation is that this unit will allow the unRaid Server to fall over to UPS power when it encounters a power outage and then safely power down the unRaid Server.  Additionally, and I'm not sure if this is asking too much, would the Daemon or the UPS be smart enough to power the unRaid Server back up once the main power has been restored?

 

Thanks again.

 

Two things have to happen for this to really work.  First, the UPS output has to be able turn off while on battery power after the computer powers down. (The UPS 5V supply lines could be used to determine when the computer is shut down.) When line power is restored the UPS output must turn back.  (I seem to recall reading in a manual that at least some UPS have this capability but I am not sure that all UPS have this capability.)  In my experience, it seems that most UPS's seem to default to simply supply power until the battery runs down.

 

Second, the motherboard must support automatic start-up when power is reapplied to the board.  Again, I don't think this is a universal feature and you would have to read the manual to find out if yours does.

 

I also recall that some APC UPS's perform a self-test when they power-on after being reconnected to AC power.  During this self-test they remove output power for a short period of time.  This can cause a rebooting computer to crash.  (I know this happened to me when I was testing to see that apcupsd was shutting down the sever correctly--- it did. I then plugged the UPS back in to the power outlet and hit the power button on the server.  It crashed within the first thirty seconds while it was cycling between battery and line power!  I was NOT a happy camper...)

Virtually every system built in the last decade has a power option in the BIOS, which you can set to "Always On".  This will cause the system to turn on when power is applied.

 

The APC UPS package available for UnRAID (thru UnMenu or independently) sends a signal to the UPS to turn itself off in x seconds when it's shutting down the PC ... this gives the PC time to power off; then the UPS turns itself off.  Virtually all UPS units support this -- I've yet to see an APC, Belkin, CyberPower unit that didn't support this.    So the automatic shutdown is no problem; and the automatic reboot isn't a problem as long as the UPS turns itself back on after a power toggle (i.e. loss of power followed by it being restored).    Most UPS's I've tried do this -- I think any APC or CyberPower unit with AVR will do so, but I am NOT certain -- as I noted earlier.

 

Thanks everyone for the input.  I just decided to purchase the UPS garycase recommended to see where it might get me.  Based on the feedback it appears I'll be good to auto-shutdown.  It is auto-reboot being the question.  Once I've had time to actually play with the UPS I'll report back my results.  If anyone can think of any other guidance please let me know.  This is my first time using a UPS.  Thanks again.

When testing how the ups deals with power outages leave your unraid box plugged into the outlet and a lamp or something like that plugged into the ups.

 

Sent from a mobile device, sorry for any typos.

 

 

While the "lamp test" will work, there's no real reason for it -- the UnRAID box is still going to shut down when it's notified of the outage ... and with this approach you won't know whether or not it reboots automatically.  One thing the lamp test DOES do is keep the power to the UPS, so if for some reason it doesn't shut down properly, you won't have an improper shutdown -- so you may want to try that once just to ensure the powerdown package is working okay.  But then just connect everything normally and do it again.

 

Be sure you set the BIOS on your system for "Always On" in the power options section.    Then your system will automatically reboot when power is restored to the UPS -- the only remaining question is whether or not the UPS turns itself on when that happens.

 

Thanks for the guidance!  It really helps.  It appears the UPS is out for delivery and I'm excited.  My 7 year old daughter is having 7 other girls over for a sleep over (birthday party) tomorrow night.  I can keep my sanity by testing the UPS away from the party.

 

I have plenty of questions, but I think I need to dive in and see what I encounter first.  I'll circle back once I've been able to spend some time with it.  Thanks again.

 

 

While the "lamp test" will work, there's no real reason for it -- the UnRAID box is still going to shut down when it's notified of the outage ... and with this approach you won't know whether or not it reboots automatically.  One thing the lamp test DOES do is keep the power to the UPS, so if for some reason it doesn't shut down properly, you won't have an improper shutdown -- so you may want to try that once just to ensure the powerdown package is working okay.  But then just connect everything normally and do it again.

 

You stated the exact reason to use the "lamp test" in your reply, although it keeps the power to unRAID box, not the UPS.  You get to test the shut down without risking anything.  Although it's unlikely, a bad UPS/battery could report everything functioning properly, and then when the power fails doesn't switch to battery properly and just powers off.  As we've seen in the past, bad things can happen if you abruptly cut power to a running computer, and there's no reason to risk that to test a UPS.

 

 

I now have the UPS and have had some luck.  I first installed APC USB via the Control Panel on unRAID.  I then powered down unRAID just to connect the USB cable from the UPS to unRAID.  I then booted everything back up, checked to ensure all the plugins worked ok, and pulled power from the UPS.  I had a few devices connected to it so it would start to consume enough power to reach the needed thresholds.  Eventually, the unRAID server did power down once those thresholds were met.  However, when I powered unRAID back up two of my plugins didn't operate as they should.  I had to try a few different settings before eventually they worked again.  One of the plugins (sickbeard) lost all its data and I'm not sure why.  Anyway, I got everything back up and running the way I hoped.

 

I should mention that before doing all this I did update the BIOS to "Always On" for the power.  I got some indication that this was working when I moved the unRAID server from the old power source to the UPS.  The instant I plugged it in, it powered up.  I didn't need to press the power button.  So that seemed promising.  I then elected to test things once the array was back online.  I pulled the power cord from the UPS (line power).  Sure enough, the UPS did its job and the unRAID server kept chugging along.  I then elected to wait and see what would happen next.  I have only the unRAID server and a monitor connected to the UPS and it reads I have 32 minutes of "Time Left."  I was very surprised how quickly the UPS elected to shut everything down.  I want to say it was only after about 10 minutes.  I was watching it and it did get down to 18 minutes on the UPS, but it must have jumped quickly to 10 minutes because again, the unRAID server did power down. 

 

So powering down to some degree is working, but I have no clue how much.  I want to say after a total power failure before I had a UPS the unRAID would require a parity check.  That isn't happening so that might be a good sign, but between now and then I have also upgraded to unRAID 5.0 so I'm not sure if it behaves any differently.  My hope is that it is indeed doing a clean power down.  Is there any way to confirm whether or not this happening?  I thought about the log file, but that gets wiped out on power down.

 

Also, the behavior for powering back up didn't happen in the way I expected.  It really didn't happen at all.  I thought that once I connected the UPS back to the wall the unRAID server would come back online.  It didn't.  My guess is that the battery power was still there.  So I guess the UPS battery would need to be completely drained first and then once power is restored the unRAID server will power up.  How are others getting around this?

 

The good news is, once I powered everything back up the plugins all operated the way I hoped.  I'm not sure what I had a little config issue before. 

I decided to hook a monitor up to the unRAID server and test again.  It does appear to be powering down properly.  This UPS is going to probably do the job, but I am very surprised how quickly it goes through a full battery.  It probably only lasts about 5 - 8 minutes before it ramps all the way down to hit the 10 minutes left threshold.  Once it did I did see the monitor light up with a number of commands and the daemon appears to have down what it is supposed to and cleanly power everything down.  Good stuff.

 

I'm still curious about how to possibly auto power everything back up.  Again, once I put the power cord back in the wall I expected the unRAID server to come back up, but again, it did not.  I also played a little with the KILL UPS switch in the APC UPS Daemon, but that didn't seem to make a difference either.  At this point it appears I will need to manually turn the unRAID server back on when there is a power failure, but that isn't the end of the world.  I also thought of another added wrinkle, that is, even if the unRAID server did power up, the array wouldn't be started.  I guess I can probably automate that in some way as well, but now my thinking has been a two-step process:  1) finding a way to turn the server back on after a power failure and 2) starting that array automatically.

I decided to hook a monitor up to the unRAID server and test again.  It does appear to be powering down properly.  This UPS is going to probably do the job, but I am very surprised how quickly it goes through a full battery.  It probably only lasts about 5 - 8 minutes before it ramps all the way down to hit the 10 minutes left threshold.  Once it did I did see the monitor light up with a number of commands and the daemon appears to have down what it is supposed to and cleanly power everything down.  Good stuff.

 

I'm still curious about how to possibly auto power everything back up.  Again, once I put the power cord back in the wall I expected the unRAID server to come back up, but again, it did not.  I also played a little with the KILL UPS switch in the APC UPS Daemon, but that didn't seem to make a difference either.  At this point it appears I will need to manually turn the unRAID server back on when there is a power failure, but that isn't the end of the world.  I also thought of another added wrinkle, that is, even if the unRAID server did power up, the array wouldn't be started.  I guess I can probably automate that in some way as well, but now my thinking has been a two-step process:  1) finding a way to turn the server back on after a power failure and 2) starting that array automatically.

 

I don't know quite what your situation is on powerages where you live.  But in my case, if the power is out more than thirty seconds, it will probably be out for several hours.  Therefore, I start the server shutting down after the power has been out for thirty seconds.  The reasoning for this is that the older the battery gets, the quicker it gets to the point where you have set for the shutdown to start.  And what you thought was a ten minute 'cushion' in which to complete the shutdown is now only a couple of minutes and the battery may run out of juice before the server can be completely shut down.  (By the way most likely, you will never be aware of this slow battery deterioration until it is too late!  The APC report on 'TIMELEFT' really doesn't report the effect of this battery aging.  That number is calculated based on a 'new' battery.)

And there more frequent and deeper the discharge the faster the battery "ages"

 

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A couple thoughts ...

 

First, it seems you have the UPS set to wait until it has 10 min left before shutting down the server.  Bad choice -- you should set it to shut down after a fairly short outage (I use 5 minutes) so the batteries don't get discharged too much.

 

Second, after the server shuts down, leave the UPS unplugged for a few minutes and see if it shuts off -- if it's being sent the appropriate "kill UPS" command, it should.  THEN if you plug the UPS back in, it will likely turn itself back on (this is what I noted before -- some do this; some don't).  If it does, then your system will automatically power back on.  If not, there's nothing you can do about it -- you need to push the UPS power button to power everything back on.

 

In addition to the above advice, which is good, one of the reasons that the available run-time reported seems so inaccurate is that the UPS will currently be estimating the time remaining based on assumptions about the batteries.  This can be improved.

 

If you temporarily disable APCUPSD, you can then go to the command line and run APCTEST.  This has an option to perform a calibration amongst other things (works on the APC units that I have tried.)  This calibration process will measure the time taken to discharge the battery with the current load of your server and any other devices, from battery full down to 25% remaining.  The UPS will then use this figure in the future to help it to calculate the run time remaining.  Once the batteries are recharged, you will have a new figure.  It won't be totally accurate, but it will probably be more useful than what you have now.

A couple thoughts ...

 

First, it seems you have the UPS set to wait until it has 10 min left before shutting down the server.  Bad choice -- you should set it to shut down after a fairly short outage (I use 5 minutes) so the batteries don't get discharged too much.

 

Second, after the server shuts down, leave the UPS unplugged for a few minutes and see if it shuts off -- if it's being sent the appropriate "kill UPS" command, it should.  THEN if you plug the UPS back in, it will likely turn itself back on (this is what I noted before -- some do this; some don't).  If it does, then your system will automatically power back on.  If not, there's nothing you can do about it -- you need to push the UPS power button to power everything back on.

 

Thanks Gary as well as everyone else who has provided input.  I think I need to be happy with what I have and probably stop experimenting.  They very thing I'm trying to avoid (loss of power to unRAID) is the very thing I think just happened because of my misunderstanding of how the KILL UPS switch works.  Here is what I think may have happened.

 

I set the KILL UPS on APC UPS D to ON.  I unplugged the UPS from the wall and waited for the batteries to drain enough to kick off the script to shutdown unRAID, which it did successfully.  Then I waited a bit assuming that the KILL UPS signal had been sent to the UPS and plugged the UPS back in to the wall expecting that unRAID would kick back on.  It didn't.  It is hard for me to tell whether this feature is really going to work at all so I just elected to abandon it and turned unRAID back on manually and then started the array manually. 

 

About 15 minutes later my Son tells me something is up with one of the ROKU's.  Sure enough, it looks like the server is down.  I check unRAID and all the drives are spun up and it is asking me to start the array and it will force a parity check.  This is exactly what has happened in the past when unRAID hasn't done a clean power down.

 

My only guess is something happened with the KILL UPS switch.  Could it have been sent after I plugged the UPS back in to the wall?  I have no clue.  Also, what confuses me is this could be a real-life scenario where power is restored before the KILL UPS signal is sent...right?  Ultimately, I know I just don't know what I'm doing in this space and probably shouldn't run the risk of damaging unRAID not to mention I still have to turn on the array any time there is a power cycle so for me I'm not sure what the point is.  Again, I'm guessing it can be automated, but it is just something else I would need to customize. 

 

For now it appears everything is working to at least power down unRAID cleanly in the event of a long-term power outage.  This give me a much safer feeling with my data, and again, thanks for everyone's help with the guidance. 

... I unplugged the UPS from the wall and waited for the batteries to drain enough to kick off the script to shutdown unRAID, which it did successfully.

 

This is what you do NOT want to do ("... waited for the batteries to drain ...").    Just set the configuration to do this shutdown after 5 minutes.

 

 

Then I waited a bit assuming that the KILL UPS signal had been sent to the UPS and plugged the UPS back in to the wall expecting that unRAID would kick back on.

 

If this has been done correctly, the UPS will shutdown (turn itself off) after 180 seconds.  THis is a LONG time when you're simply waiting for it.  I suspect you plugged it back in before this time -- in which case the UPS was still counting down, and then turned itself off after you had already rebooted UnRAID.  You do NOT want to do this.

 

There's a parameter in the UPS firmware (on an APC unit it's called "shutdowngracedelay") that can alter this shutdown time.  I'm out of town at the moment, and don't recall the details of how to change this (I can tell you next week if you still need it) ... but to test whether or not your unit does this, WAIT after a shutdown and see if the UPS itself turns off.  If that doesn't happen after 10 minutes or so it's simply not going to happen.  If you plug it back in BEFORE it's turned off, you risk the kind of issues you noted.  If you're testing and it doesn't turn itself off; then turn off the UPS manually -- then turn it back on and UnRAID should automatically boot (since the PC is set to always be on).

 

 

 

What size unit should I buy for a sixteen drive (max) UnRAID

What size unit should I buy for a sixteen drive (max) UnRAID

 

The unit I suggested in this thread would be fine for that.

http://www.amazon.com/CyberPower-CP1000AVRLCD-Intelligent-Series-Mini-Tower/dp/B000QZ3UG0/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1399954947&sr=8-11&keywords=apc+ups

Unfortunately I can buy this in the UK

 

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Unfortunately I can buy this in the UK

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

This would be a good choice:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/APC-BR900GI-Interface-Power-Saving-Back-UPS/dp/B0042F0JMS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1401063109&sr=8-4&keywords=UPS

 

Unfortunately I can buy this in the UK

 

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This would be a good choice:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/APC-BR900GI-Interface-Power-Saving-Back-UPS/dp/B0042F0JMS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1401063109&sr=8-4&keywords=UPS

 

Agreed - that's a very nice unit.  Here's another, but a little simpler, although still compatible with APCUPSD for the unRAID monitoring and shut down - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650va-apc-tower-ups-with-internet-dsl-fax-modem-protection-retail-box

 

It's not quite as powerful as Gary's suggestion but should be OK for the server if not connected to too much else.  I generally try to load my UPS to not more than 25% to 30% of the rated capacity to ensure that a single mains outage leaves enough in the battery for the UPS to survive a second outage if it has not had a chance to recharge.

 

Two things to consider...

- when your server starts to shut down, all drives are spun up together, so the peak power consumption will be higher for a few seconds (could hit 250 or 300 watts peak for a 16 drive system).

- if you configure the server (via some add-on) to send email alerts, then you also need the UPS to keep any router, switch, etc powered up until the server is shut down.