[MLB-WIRELESS] UPS

[Denis Cheong]

You should consider what you are connecting to it, and how you are going to
monitor it.

For example, the Mikrotik gear only supports APC UPSs (over the serial
console port - so only if you have a serial console port on your gear).
Synology NAS also have a limited range of UPSs supported (even though their
tools are based on NUT (Network UPS Tools - a stndard Un*x toolset and UPS
communications abstracter library), and they only support it over USB
(although the beta firmware supports network connected UPS).  For Linux,
BSD, Illumos, etc., NUT is great but a bit fiddly to set up.

Consider how you are going to connect to it to receive notifications and
shutdown each system gracefully - and you need some form of distributing
that between each device, or have each device talk to the UPS independently
(the latter only if it is network connected).

Once you have decided on a brand / protocol, then consider the power
consumption of your devices, desired runtime, etc., to decide on the power
rating (VA) and battery capacity requirements, as well as whether as Shaun
says you want online, line interactive, etc.

Also consider buying a cheap but well maintained second-hand rack-based
UPS, and replace the batteries.

My own UPS is a "hand me down" from a data centre upgrade a friend of mine
did (ie got it FOC).  It's an APC Smart UPS 1400 (i.e. 1400 VA, 4 x 7Ah 12v
batteries running in 2 pairs).  Believe it or not, its build date is 2000.
The batteries in it were clearly not original, nor did they work at all,
but after replacing them with 4 x 9Ah batteries at $20 each, and installing
a network card ($100 off eBay) it has been used very frequently (weekly at
one stage, due to a leaky circuit that kept tripping the RCD).  My Mikrotik
RB1200 connects to it over serial, and everything else over LAN using NUT,
and under full system load of about 500W it will last a good 15 minutes.
Not bad for a $180 investment...



On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 5:56 PM, <MW at iready.com.au> wrote:

>
> Hi
> At last weeks meeting there was some discussion and banter regarding
>  different makes of UPS...didn't  seem too relevant to me before today :-[
>
>  OH Dear  how wrong was I =-O  Today I was rebuilding a RAID configuration
> and guess what ?????
> Yes - had a power outage, just the thing to spoil your day !!!
>
> So does anyone have any recommendations re a good UPS
> Any input much appreciated
>
> Ross Byrne
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