I have been trying to decide on which UPS to use for my TrueNas SCALE NAS/homelab and some other electronic devices.
My specs are:
NAS consumes ~80W on idle, should perform 150W on max load I think (it has a 650W PSU though for extra room in case I need a GPU)
two routers (20W maximum I would say)
and some other devices that consume somewhere around 80W.
Therefore, I would say my maximum draw would be somewhere around 300-400 W or 500W at worst (if I attach a video card as well).
I have seen that I should pick a pure sine wave UPS or something that is really close to it, therefore I chose the CyberPower CP1500EPFCLCD 1500VA UPS. However, I have seen in some posts like this that this specific model is a potential fire hazard and now I honestly do not know which UPS to pick: some people say that one should go with APC, while others say that their quality has dropped significantly in the last few years, and the same is true for just about any brand.
In your opinion, what would be the best UPS in this case, that could replace the CP1500EPFCLCD? Or did someone perhaps hear about its problems being fixed in the meantime?
Eaton commercial UPSes are prettymuch unstoppable.
I still have a few 12 year old APCs that I’ve swapped batteries in… a bunch… but I don’t recommend those. A common issue is these lead acid UPSes slightly overcharge their packs and wear the batteries out a bit prematurely.
@DavieDavieDavie Yes, honestly I have seen a lot of people saying that they did not run into this issue, so I do not know how “real” the issue itself is.
@wendell
Yes, I have heard from many people now that APC batteries usually die earlier (I believe somewhere around 2-2.5 years).
I am now trying to decide between the Eaton 5P850i and the APC BR1600SI, but I lean more toward the Eaton because of the same reasons @wendell mentioned.
I have a bazillion CyberPower 1500VA pure sinewave UPS units at the office and never had one release the magic smoke. Normal office, hot LAN closet, in a lab exposed to all kinds of chemical vapors, etc. Batteries typically last 3-5 years depending on abuse (deep discharge cycles and high heat kill them faster) That’s just the nature of lead-acid batteries.
Some of the horror stories may be due to improperly wired electrical outlets. IE, UPS takes a lightning hit but the “handyman” who installed the outlet never bothered to ground it. UPS tries to shunt the surge to a non-existent ground and explodey things happen.
Can you elaborate? I’ve only ever had the insanely expensive eaton stuff, even breaker panels and bypass boxes, and it’s been solid. I just started doing their lead acid to lifeso4 kits on the big closet batteries and so far so good
the BIG room sized dedicated breaker box Eaton stuff i have used has all been great.
the rack mount, single rack sized, Eaton stuff i have never had any luck with. The Eaton equipment is set up from the factory to be more sensitive to voltage than any other manufacturer even after lots of different models, and several Eaton people coming out to make adjustments, they would never stay powered up more than 30 days before the caught a voltage fluctuation that caused them to discharge and shut down. they would not turn back on until being hard reset. this is probably a local issue, and the Eaton rig i managed for a while that was hardwired to the 240v 3 phase and ran an entire building always worked fine.
over the years i have tried Eaton rack mount stuff a dozen times it it NEVER works with the 120v or 240v wall connect power that we can get here. even after Eaton adjusts them for wider or less sensitive input.
I think I will either stick with CyberPower or the Eaton 5P850i.
Honestly, at this point I have read both good and bad on the Internet just about any UPS (e.g. APC, Eaton, CyberPower), so I guess it will just come down to luck at this point.
Eaton is the only UPS manufacturer that seems to be trying. All others (I’ve worked with most all of them) do simple float charging of their batteries and scheduled “tests” which just involve blindly switching load over to battery for a few seconds.
Eaton’s ABM* at least doesn’t do that, so your UPS doesn’t drop the load during tests when the batteries are unhealthy. They also make plausible claims that it substantially improves battery lifetimes (which eventually becomes a larger expense than UPS purchase price). But pay attention as not all Eaton UPS units have ABM.
After several years of running several Eaton 9pk6k units and a few Eaton 5SC’s, I’ve had no problems. Of course there’s no substitute for have dual power inputs on your important system, either dual PSUs or an ATS switching PDU. In a company with hundreds of APC UPSes large and small, one of them would drop the load on something or other every month.
In the case of keeping 4 HDDs and the home router powered temporarily… is the 5SC worth the 2x price premium over a 5S? Looks like the main difference is 5SC has pure sine wave output & ABM.
The Tripp Lite SMART1500PSGLCD has a similar price point to the EATON 5S1500LCD but actually has the pure sine wave output. But it doesn’t look like it’s really supported by the Network UPS tools on TrueNAS.
Edit: I guess the EATON 5S1500LCD actually supports ABM based on their website (Amazon listing is incorrect).
I think the key is, replacing the batteries every few years. How many years exactly depends on your risk level, but they definitely do not last forever.
Unfortunately some manufacturers make replacing batteries a pain by gluing the cases and soldering the batteries.
I think there is no moral ground to shame, as those are not advertised to have replacabe batteries. It would be smart for the end user to think ahead what he or she is going to do to get fresh batteries in a few years.
The options are:
throw the whole UPS away and buy a new one
buy a unit with officially replaceable batteries (those are normally more expensive)
‐ watch battery replacement videos on YouTube for the models you are interested in, and decide if this would be easy enogh for your skill level
there are also UPS units available that take external batteries, but these normally are not PFC compatible, so watch out for that.
I liken it to printer manufacturers making it hard to use third party ink, electronics coming with proprietary power bricks, or Apple resisting the use of the universal USB-C port for charging. What they don’t advertise, practice, or officially sanction is fair game for naming and shaming.
Non-replaceable batteries is a just anti-feature to complain about on many levels including planned obsolescence and encouragement of e-waste—in light of the short useful lifespan of batteries.
