Power save mode when on UPS battery?

[FreeMan]

When the power at my house shut off last night, I was very pleased to hear the beeping of UPSs all around the house as I wandered around shutting down extraneous items attached to them (like monitors). When I got to the one for my server, I looked at the somewhat dismal 30 minute projected run-time displayed by the UPS (compared to the one sitting next to it with 80ish minutes of run-time for a smaller system), listened to the sound of the hard drives and fans spinning (quite audible when everything else is off), and thought it would be great if all those drives would spin down NOW.

 

Is there a way to get the server to go into a power-save mode when the UPS notifies it that it's running on battery? Something like:

• Put all the drives on a 2-minute spin down
• Pause the mover if it's running (thus allowing the drives to spin down)
• Put the CPU into a lower power mode
• Put fans on their lowest settings (if they're adjustable)
• anything else that can be done to conserve power

 

I have external friends/family using my server as their off-site backup (thanks CrashPlan!). I have family streaming movies, TV & music from the server (thanks *sonic!), etc, So the goal would be to have the server live for as long as possible before shutting down, in the hopes that the power will come back on before the batteries run out. All these functions that I would like to continue to have available would, obviously, preclude simply putting the server to sleep. Of course, restoring all settings to normal "full power" mode when the UPS indicates that it's back on line power would be necessary.

 

Is any of this available as a current feature in 6.3.5? If not, is there some sort of script that could be written that could be triggered by APCUPSD, would this have to be a plug-in, or would it have to be build into the core of unRAID by the Limey guys?

[JonathanM]

In general, this is a bad idea. If you have power outages often enough to be an ongoing concern, you either need to invest in a better UPS that allows extended runtime battery packs to be added until you get the time you want, or kick over to a generator.

 

Running a UPS until it's almost dead pretty much guarantees you will need to replace the battery after only a few full cycles. They are healthiest when they only discharge 10 to 30 percent or so before a recharge. 50% is pushing it.

 

With even the best efforts changing what can be changed in unraid, you aren't going to save more than a few minutes worth of battery, and when the inevitable shutdown does occur, everything has to be spun up to full power to sync for shutdown.

 

Personally, if the power is out for more than 5 minutes, it's going to be out for hours. I have all my machines set to shut down after 3 minutes, that way my batteries still have plenty of juice left.

[FreeMan]

Interesting that a dozen drives and 6 fans spinning wouldn't draw enough current that spinning them down would change the battery run-time. I do understand, a larger UPS would give me more run-time, but it would also be a bigger investment...

 

It was the thought I had as I was wandering around the house taking care of things, so I figured it would be worth asking.

 

Oh, and last night's outage was about 10 minutes, so that shoots down your theory...