Is this APC Smart-UPS any good?

[Mat1926]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007ZT2KKM/

 

Can I use it to operate Modem/Switch/Desktop/Unraid - 24-bay NAS...all I want is enough time for my desktop and my unraid system to switch off and perhaps send me an email about the power outage...My desktop is 7900x and 1080ti....So I don't know if that's enough...! What if my desktop is peaking and the unraid also, this one is only 900w

[ashman70]

Yes, their Smart UPS series are better than their Back UPS.

[JonathanM]

I recommend investing in a power meter to determine what your loads actually look like before you spend the money on a specific UPS.

http://amzn.com/B00009MDBU

Keep in mind that shutting down during a power outage is pretty much the most power you are likely to draw, as all your drives must spin up if they aren't already, and a bunch of writes will occur as all your services are shutting down.

 

It may end up that you would be better off with a smaller VA unit specifically with longer runtime for your infrastructure that will stay up after your desktop and server have shut down. I know it's handy to continue to have wireless internet for an extended period of time for tablets and laptops.

[Mat1926]

2 hours ago, jonathanm said:

I recommend investing in a power meter to determine what your loads actually look like before you spend the money on a specific UPS.

http://amzn.com/B00009MDBU

Keep in mind that shutting down during a power outage is pretty much the most power you are likely to draw, as all your drives must spin up if they aren't already, and a bunch of writes will occur as all your services are shutting down.

 

It may end up that you would be better off with a smaller VA unit specifically with longer runtime for your infrastructure that will stay up after your desktop and server have shut down. I know it's handy to continue to have wireless internet for an extended period of time for tablets and laptops.

 

I do have a power meter. I will try to estimate the power draw for my desktop and then my unRaid server...All I need to measure is the wattage, correct?! I will have something to stress both the GPU/CPU and measure the power, and then I will transfer a file to my unRaid system -which is set @ turbo mode so all HDDs are spinning- and measure the power...is this the correct way to do it?!

 

Thnx

[JonathanM]

Sounds right. Just for giggles, if your power meter shows watts and volt/amps, record the reading for both. If it has peak record and hold functionality, I'd spin down everything, then do a spin up to get the absolute instantaneous peak. If you are close to max capacity on a UPS, some of them don't handle spike loads well, and could possibly shut down to protect the UPS. Spinning up the drives will take more power than steady state spun up.

 

Get all the data points you can, idle / spun down, idle / spun up, active, etc. It's useful information for the next person if you post your build list with real power numbers.

 

Don't forget to measure your switch, router and modem as well, saturate them with as much data as you can to get a peak reading.

[Mat1926]

4 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

Sounds right. Just for giggles, if your power meter shows watts and volt/amps, record the reading for both. If it has peak record and hold functionality, I'd spin down everything, then do a spin up to get the absolute instantaneous peak. If you are close to max capacity on a UPS, some of them don't handle spike loads well, and could possibly shut down to protect the UPS. Spinning up the drives will take more power than steady state spun up.

 

Get all the data points you can, idle / spun down, idle / spun up, active, etc. It's useful information for the next person if you post your build list with real power numbers.

 

Don't forget to measure your switch, router and modem as well, saturate them with as much data as you can to get a peak reading.

 

Great advice, I appreciate it a lot...Thnx

[Frank1940]

The old standard way to determine the size of a UPS was to allow between 2-to-3 amperes of inrush current flow on the +12V buss for each hard drive in the server during the spin up phase.  With the newer hard drives, this is probably closer to the 2 ampere end.  But it is important to realize that all UPS's have protection circuits in them and they will shutdown the UPS instantaneously if the UPS output exceeds its peak rating!  (And I can tell, those protection circuits do work.  I have seen one kill the power output before the lights started to dim!  I had installed a new 30" monitor without considering the difference in the additional power required over the old 22" monitor.) 

[Mat1926]

@jonathanm@Frank1940

 

I was only able to measure the watts, I do hope that is fine

 

Powering up the system, it peaked @ 180 watts, then idle below 120 watts.

Spinning down the HDDs took the power down to 70 watts

Spinning up the HDDs it peaked @ 270 watts, then remained below 120 watts

Transferring data to the system it peaked @ 140 watts

Reading data it was below 120 watts

 

My system is configured with the option reconstruct_write, and I do have 11 disks @ the moment. My chassis supports up to 24, so is it safe to say for 24 HDDs my maximum should be 270 watts x 2 = 540 watts. And in this case I need at least 600 watts Smart UPS?

 

P.S. manually spinning down/up the HDDs, does it affect the system or the data integrity?

 

Thnx

[Harro]

Here are some pics with the UPS running on my server. Just the server, 8 port switch, and a fan.

 

[Frank1940]

The real problem is measuring the 'true' peak power.  There are protection circuits in the UPS that will instantaneously shutdown the converter to protect the switching transistors as soon they they detect an overpower (Actually over current) situation.  (They don't want warranty returns because those switching transistors failed and they don't want to use transistors with any higher power rating than absolutely required because of cost!)  By my calculations, your potential peak power is the range of 500W.  (117W at idle + (12V X  16HD X 2A(peak)/HD   ~   500W )  So your estimate of 540W is pretty close to the mark.

[Mat1926]

15 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

(117W at idle + (12V X  16HD X 2A(peak)/HD   ~   500W ) 

 

What is this 16HD?

 

*edit* for an unknown reason, the HDDs seemed spinned down, this never happened before, do you know what might caused that?! the only thing that I did was to make the array starts automatically...

[Frank1940]

The one thing you want to check is the actual runtime at the expected load.  I would probably use 140W in your case.  The reason for looking at the spec is that the battery is heavy and probably the most expensive component in the UPS.  You usually have to go to the Manufacturer's website and find the specs that will show this number.   BTW, they will often use the same battery in several models in the product so the runtime at any specific power level are the same for those models.  The only difference is the components in the switching transistors and their setup.  

4 minutes ago, Mat1926 said:

What is this 16HD?

 

I counted the unassigned drive.  You have a slot for it and you obviously have something in there now, you could assign the drive in that slot to the array and/or it could be spun up (if not now in the future) at shutdown.  (You certainly don't want to buy a new UPS to be able to add a new drive to your array...)  

[Mat1926]

My estimate was for 24 HDDs, not 16...so it seems I might need something like 700 watts...correct?

[Frank1940]

That would be the absolute minimum.  Personally, I would move that up to 800W and double check the runtime as that is the approximate power rating point where most manufacturer's are using the larger battery packs to up the runtime.  Remember as the battery ages, the actual runtime will drop significantly...

[unevent]

Doc may prove worth reading http://www.apc.com/salestools/RMUZ-7DTKRC/RMUZ-7DTKRC_R1_EN.pdf

 

[Mat1926]

15 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

That would be the absolute minimum.  Personally, I would move that up to 800W and double check the runtime as that is the approximate power rating point where most manufacturer's are using the larger battery packs to up the runtime.  Remember as the battery ages, the actual runtime will drop significantly...

 

Something like this? https://www.amazon.de/dp/B003IR1CG8/

[Mat1926]

6 minutes ago, unevent said:

Doc may prove worth reading http://www.apc.com/salestools/RMUZ-7DTKRC/RMUZ-7DTKRC_R1_EN.pdf

 

 

Thnx, very nice document...

[JonathanM]

3 hours ago, Mat1926 said:

 

Something like this? https://www.amazon.de/dp/B003IR1CG8/

That looks like a good match for a 24 drive server.

 

Were you planning on running your desktop and server on the same UPS for now, and getting another UPS for the desktop when you increase the drive count on the server?

 

Also, keep in mind that in order to get emails, your internet path needs to be powered. Modem, router, switch, etc. Whether it's a good idea to put them on the same UPS or not depends on your specific needs.

[Mat1926]

1 minute ago, jonathanm said:

That looks like a good match for a 24 drive server.

 

Were you planning on running your desktop and server on the same UPS for now, and getting another UPS for the desktop when you increase the drive count on the server?

 

Also, keep in mind that in order to get emails, your internet path needs to be powered. Modem, router, switch, etc. Whether it's a good idea to put them on the same UPS or not depends on your specific needs.

 

I am more concerned about unraid to be honest with you. My modem and switch will be connected to the UPS also...so in case of power loss I'll at least be notified and if I am around I can also browse the web until the power is back...

 

Thnx

[trurl]

11 minutes ago, Mat1926 said:

 

I am more concerned about unraid to be honest with you. My modem and switch will be connected to the UPS also...so in case of power loss I'll at least be notified and if I am around I can also browse the web until the power is back...

 

Thnx

What you should be thinking is if the power is out for more than a very few minutes, the desktop and server both shut themselves down. You shouldn't even think about using either one on just the UPS power. In fact, you don't even want your monitor plugged in to the battery backup.

 

You can leave the network up and browse the internet from a laptop with its own battery.

[Mat1926]

2 minutes ago, trurl said:

What you should be thinking is if the power is out for more than a very few minutes, the desktop and server both shut themselves down. You shouldn't even think about using either one on just the UPS power. In fact, you don't even want your monitor plugged in to the battery backup.

 

You can leave the network up and browse the internet from a laptop with its own battery.

 

Absolutely, my desktop will not be connected to the UPS at all, the purpose of the UPS is to just to give unRaid enough time to power down safely. And browsing the web will be through my tablet...

[trurl]

4 minutes ago, Mat1926 said:

 

Absolutely, my desktop will not be connected to the UPS at all, the purpose of the UPS is to just to give unRaid enough time to power down safely. And browsing the web will be through my tablet...

I have my desktop and server both on the same UPS, but it is configured with the desktop apcupsd as a slave to the apcupsd on my server. The server gets the UPS status from the UPS by USB, and the desktop gets the UPS status from the server. So they both know when to shutdown.

 

My network is on its own, lower capacity UPS so browsing the internet doesn't drain the server UPS.

[Mat1926]

1 minute ago, trurl said:

My network is on its own, lower capacity UPS so browsing the internet doesn't drain the server UPS.

 

How long does it last in case of power loss?

[trurl]

1 hour ago, Mat1926 said:

 

How long does it last in case of power loss?

I've never had to find out, and I haven't really done any measurements or tests.

[unevent]

Selecting a UPS is not just adding up measured loads and picking something just above it.  The power supply plays a major factor and the supply will draw more current than what is actually needed for the load at times due to power factor correction and for disturbances on the incoming power waveform.  Initial server power-on from cold state is the hardest for the UPS and can cause some units to shutdown (or bypass depending on UPS topology) because of the large current load demanded from the power supply.  The supply being fed nasty waveform full of harmonics from a non-sinusoidal UPS will also increase the current demand from the power supply placing more demand on the UPS while on battery during a power event which can cause some to simply drop out.

 

Your situation is a little more difficult to select for because your 1000W power supply is about double what is needed for your current load.  The power supply plays just as much a role in UPS selection as does the actual load as explained in the document I linked earlier.  Your absolute requirements are a true sine wave UPS.  With a UPS you have true or real power and apparent power.  These are the Watts (W) and Volt Amps (VA), respectively, and are in the specifications for all UPS units.  I suggest using the equation in the document linked earlier to calculate a suitable UPS then pick a brand you like that outputs a true sine wave and not stepped approximation.

 

TL;DR, 80+ Titanium efficiency is 90-96%, 1000W / 0.9 = 1111W.  Choose a UPS with 1111W minimum output, which would put you in the 1500-2000VA range.  Increase the capacity accordingly if you plan to add other loads to it besides your server.  Also look into the battery replacement costs before deciding on a specific model or capacity size.  There is most likely a point or sweet spot where replacement batteries may be slightly cheaper for a larger unit or cheaper between UPS brands as they don't always use the same size/capacity batteries for given capacity.  https://atbatt.com/ is a good place to look at replacement battery prices either for individual or in cartridge/package form for comparison.  Typical battery life is no less than two years unless placed in a hot environment.  More modern UPS units play better with PFC power supplies than older units, but is not an across the board assumption.  Those that do you can get away with a smaller capacity than the calculation.  Most will advertise this capability such as some specific models from Cyberpower.  I believe these are the PFC Sinewave series.

 

Edit:  Noticed you have 80+ Platinum instead of Titanium.  Based on your wattage measurements given earlier, you are at 7-14% loading of that 1000W supply for the majority of server operation and Platinum has no efficiency rating requirement at less than 20% for supplies less efficient than Titanium.  You can assume a 90% efficiency or it can be 80%.  Difficult situation.  Stick with a true sine wave UPS that works with modern PFC power supplies and you can probably be safe going below the calculation for UPS sizing within reason.