What to look for in a rack mount ups?

this is something i need but i am not privy to most enterprise/pro ups solutions and features. i see simple home ups systems with va ratings and watt time and watt draw and hardware failure warranties ‘up to 10000$…’.

what should some one look for in enterprise/pro ups?
any personal recommendations would be helpful? or what to avoid ?

interesting i was wondering the same thing, i recently moved my home office to a real office, and i have a network rack with a storage server and was also looking for a rack mounted UPS.

they seem to be overall way more expensive that regular solutions

Pure sine would be ideal. VA != Watts so dont use VA as your wattage rating. Other than that whatever fits your budget.

These are usually my general recommendation:

1 Like

For home use, I would start by looking in your local area for used units on the assumption that you will need to replace the batteries. APC Smart-UPS units are pretty solid and often not too hard to find in my experience.

If you gonna be running Linux boxes off it make sure the UPS has proper driver support on Linux.
Many UPSs only support Windows officially, and this can be a huge PITA, as you dont get things like “suspend when the battery gets low”.

1 Like

thanks for the recommendation and what to look for i ended up ordering a older apc and extra batteries because FEW seem to have linux support w/o hair pulling apc and cyberpower look like they actually care about that market segment

2 Likes

Cyberpower makes great UPS’ that aren’t absurdly expensive. For sizing, maximum wattage draw is about 60% of the VA rating, don’t go over that. Cyberpower though has been pretty good at displaying both VA and Wattage ratings, along with estimated runtimes at various loads

EDIT: Oh just saw the last post. Woops lol

3 Likes

no worries still good info

1 Like

Thanks, @2bitmarksman for sharing information about Cyberpower UPS. I will soon be in the market for one.

1 Like

My experience with UPSes is storied. Mostly because I dealt with them in environments I had no control over, which is probably the case for most. Industrial parks, motors, bad grounding, and in general power that is provided by infrastructure that is no where near to code or best practice. I don’t remember just how many expensive UPSes die due to being treated as a bandaid for bad power. I always wondered if things would be any better if people paid for their buildings/properties to be properly wired. But unfortunately that costs money and doing things the right way doesn’t help the near term bottom line.

I’m not jaded at all!

/shrug.

3 Likes

We have a server room in a building where the power is cut to the server room if the fire alarm gets triggered anywhere in the building.
The building is large.
The building also houses chemistry labs, among a myriad of things.
UPSs are mandatory. (unless you like having your servers power cycled every couple months at random times)

1 Like

Just think of it this way. If the evil organization you work for has it’s labs targeted you can be sure the network will shutdown gracefully when they set fire to it. Then you can assess if you can make off with the data or take a sledgehammer to your storage. I’m sure you already have offsite backups so no worries.

Joking aside that seems like a brilliant facility they have there. Too bad you couldn’t give them a scare sometime and fake a data loss during one of these routine fires. If only that would work out in the positive. They probably get wise to it and fire you rather than consider that maybe they should reconsider the power situation.

It might be a insurance / fire code issue. Even then there’s gotta be some sort of leeway. They’re probably just no willing to put in the time/money to reach a compromise that would make all parties happy and allow you to have always on power.

“What the insurance company won’t renew our policy unless we install the power shutoff relay their risk assessment calls for? Fine, just get it done.”
“But what about…”
“JUST GET IT DONE! I don’t have time for this BS…”

1 Like

Well, the server room is shared you see. So I could only ever fake data loss on our stuff, which would not move the needle by any amount.
The server room is also in a basement. Here is hoping we never get flooded.

Guess the accidental water main break with the simultaneous drunk driving a cargo van into the lowest point of the building routine then.

Maybe their servers can learn to swim?

Sorry, just reminded of a certain sysadmin from hell.