UPS Choices and what not to buy?

[eagle470]

Hello, I'm looking at getting a smart UPS for my box and I'm wondering what brands are good and bad and what features I REALLY need to have vs those that don't matter.

 

Right now I'm behind a low end dumb UPS solely for leveling purposes.

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, eagle470 said:

Hello, I'm looking at getting a smart UPS for my box and I'm wondering what brands are good and bad and what features I REALLY need to have vs those that don't matter.

 

Right now I'm behind a low end dumb UPS solely for leveling purposes.

Most will tell you that AVR (automatic voltage regulation) and pure sine wave are highly desirable.  The APC BR1000MS UPS I am currently using on my unRAID server has both.  However, the previous UPS I was using with the server had neither and it worked properly with my server through a couple of outages.

 

I would say look for one with at least AVR, especially if your power source is subject to surges or is flaky.  Simulated/modified sine wave is not as good as pure sine wave, but, it works well enough in most cases.

[pepar]

Instead of starting another perhaps too similar thread, this is my question as well. However, my specific interest is remotely monitoring the UPS and even auto shutdown (gracefully of course). Any “home” (read: reasonably priced) UPS have this?

[trurl]

Auto shutdown is what the point is really. You don't want your server to run a long time on battery power, just long enough to get past the occasional dips, and if power is really out for more than a small amount of time, your server should go ahead and shutdown. What you don't want is for it to run the battery down and then try to go again without enough charge on the UPS to shutdown when it goes out again.

 

Most APC and Cyberpower UPS that have a USB connection are going to have what you need to interface to Unraid so that it can monitor the UPS status and shut itself down.

 

Don't know if you have something else in mind when you say "remotely monitoring" or not. You don't need to monitor it yourself, Unraid does, and Unraid can send you an email when the UPS status changes.

[Hoopster]

4 hours ago, pepar said:

Instead of starting another perhaps too similar thread, this is my question as well. However, my specific interest is remotely monitoring the UPS and even auto shutdown (gracefully of course). Any “home” (read: reasonably priced) UPS have this?

Most mid-to-higher end, and even many lower-end, "home" APC or CyberPower (support APCUPSD) UPS systems are going to give you what you are seeking.

 

Auto shutdown can be triggered by several milestones as seen below in my unRAID UPS settings.

 

The server will gracefully shutdown when one of the following (whichever comes first) happens: UPS battery level is at 60%, there is 15 minutes of run time left on battery, the server has been running on battery for 5 minutes (300 seconds).  I also have it set to turn off the UPS after shutdown.

 

 

There is quite a bit of information monitored by unRAID and it sends me a notification any time the server goes on battery power (even briefly) and returns to AC power.  With the many winter snow storms we have seen recently there have been a couple of power "outages" that lasted just a couple of seconds.  It has been quite a while since the power was out long enough to trigger a shutdown.

 

 

Edited February 7, 2019 by Hoopster

[pepar]

Thanks!