Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
Hi,
the *why*. Is there a best type to save me from this? Do any of
these power supplies come with scripts to shutdown a Unix {or
Linux} computer? Is there a UPS that is designed for heavy use
and a very short (5- to 10-second) uptime? I'll need one that can
interface thru the COM ports or the UBS port, if that is how
these devices work.
Sorry if I jump in the thread. When it comes to detecting a power
outage and shutingdown nicely your server, a cheap/easy way is for the
server (on the UPS) to check through the network for a low grade PC
(not on the UPS). If the low grade PC is down, it means the power is
off and the server should consider a shutdown.
Dirty trick, but it works.
Best regards,
Olivier
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RE: what kind of UPS will work best?
Hi Gary,
I've owned and worked with at least a dozen different UPS brands.
The best UPS I have - which I have right now powering several systems,
is a Best Power Ferrups FE series. I don't think they make it anymore,
sorry!
As for the APC units - the APC standby units are everyone's whore.
I have a collection of them that have failed for a variety of reasons.
They have their problems.
The worst part about the APC units are the batteries. If you decide
to go APC, when it comes time to replace the batteries you -must- buy
the most expensive lead acid gel cells you can find. You cannot put in
the cheap Chinese batteries and have them last. The reason is that
APC has deliberately calibrated their charging circuitry to fast-charge
the batteries and they use fast charge curves that will destroy the
cheap batteries very quickly. By contrast most everyone else in the
industry uses feedback circuits that measure how fast the battery is
taking a recharge and will not boil dry the cheap batteries. Last time
I changed batteries in my Best unit was 9/2004 and they are still going
strong and I used the cheap Chinese batteries. By contrast all the
APC units I had which I got the same cheap batteries for, have dead
batteries in them now.
Now, it may be in the brand new APC's they have changed things. I
noticed in the last new APC unit we sold that APC had switched to
cheaper cells from Better Battery rather than the more spendy cells
from Panasonic that they used in their older UPSes. But, I still think
there are better deals to be had.
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Gary Kline
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2007 4:12 PM
To: FreeBSD Mailing List
Subject: what kind of UPS will work best?
Hi Folks,
Recently, a storm happened and the power surge blew me
off-line. Time to get serious about buying a UPS that will
handle my four main servers for at-most, a 10-second power
outage. After that, shut down my computers. It took me 90
minutes of up and down and crawling around last time. That's
the *why*. Is there a best type to save me from this? Do any of
these power supplies come with scripts to shutdown a Unix {or
Linux} computer? Is there a UPS that is designed for heavy use
and a very short (5- to 10-second) uptime? I'll need one that can
interface thru the COM ports or the UBS port, if that is how
these devices work.
tia,
gary
--
Gary Kline [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.thought.org Public Service Unix
http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org
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Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
On Tue, 2007-10-09 at 11:36 +0800, Erich Dollansky wrote: Hi, Ray wrote: On Monday 08 October 2007 8:36:39 pm Erich Dollansky wrote: Hi, Rob wrote: think. Most the draw in a residence is the HVAC. what is this? HVAC? Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning move the machine around to be used for heating during winter. Compared to that PCs are a minor consumer. Erich Just my 2 cents. As others have said, go with APC. I just recently hooked up a 2200XL rack mounted unit which is running 6 servers. A recent calibration test showed that the unit will run these servers for about 3 hours before it's absolutely necessary to shut down the power. Another nice thing about the APC's is that you can find SNMP/Web modules for some of their units which will generate SNMP traps when events occur with the power. I'm using apcupsd from the ports collection to control the servers in the event of a long term power outage. It has a configurable master/slave mode. You connect the master to the UPS and then slave from the master to other servers. My UPS and server are older so the connection between them is serial. You may get different results with newer hardware that is USB or if you choose to go the SNMP route. -- Chris -- __o All I was doing was trying to get home from work. _`\,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*)___ Christopher Sean Hiltonchris | at | vindaloo.com pgp key: D0957A2D/f5 30 0a e1 55 76 9b 1f 47 0b 07 e9 75 0e 14 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
On Sunday 07 October 2007, Gary Kline wrote: First, thank to both you and Bart for your cmments. You were *right* about the price. Can I assume that a ballpark would be 400W for each server? (My wife is right: I've got to cut back to three computers:-) I've found one APC 2200VA with a 17minute uptime. 3 times 400W, yes? I think this is overkill. Some time ago I was wondering the same thing and to verify my guess on the overall power usage of my servers I bought a VA/Watts meter (EUR. 39,-). Turns out average wattage is about 90watts per server idle and max 130watts under load. On powerup they will use a max. of 180watts for less than a second. The servers are simple dual cores with about 2 harddisks each. (no screens or other devices attached) Also, the powerfactor was ~0,95 so that means that for every Watt of apparent power (VA) almost a Watt of real power was used. Thus, for my servers I would need something like a 500Watt/600VA UPS. So my advice is: don't guess but measure. Cheers, Pieter de Goeje ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 02:36:05AM +0200, Pieter de Goeje wrote: On Sunday 07 October 2007, Gary Kline wrote: First, thank to both you and Bart for your cmments. You were *right* about the price. Can I assume that a ballpark would be 400W for each server? (My wife is right: I've got to cut back to three computers:-) I've found one APC 2200VA with a 17minute uptime. 3 times 400W, yes? I think this is overkill. Some time ago I was wondering the same thing and to verify my guess on the overall power usage of my servers I bought a VA/Watts meter (EUR. 39,-). Turns out average wattage is about 90watts per server idle and max 130watts under load. On powerup they will use a max. of 180watts for less than a second. The servers are simple dual cores with about 2 harddisks each. (no screens or other devices attached) Also, the powerfactor was ~0,95 so that means that for every Watt of apparent power (VA) almost a Watt of real power was used. Thus, for my servers I would need something like a 500Watt/600VA UPS. So my advice is: don't guess but measure. Thanks a lot. I was thinking of doing something like this; maybe an ammeter to see how much power each server draws; then (possiibly add a bit for reserve). I'm looking at this as a long-time project. Not rushing to do something completely foolish. So the more accuracy, the better! gary Cheers, Pieter de Goeje ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Gary Kline [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
Pieter de Goeje wrote: verify my guess on the overall power usage of my servers I bought a VA/Watts meter (EUR. 39,-). Turns out average wattage is about 90watts per server idle and max 130watts under load. On powerup they will use a max. of 180watts for I've got one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001 Works nicely for measuring cumulative power usage. APC's web site also has a selector with very model-specific power consumption figures: http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/index.cfm -Rob ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 02:05:17PM -0400, Rob wrote: Pieter de Goeje wrote: verify my guess on the overall power usage of my servers I bought a VA/Watts meter (EUR. 39,-). Turns out average wattage is about 90watts per server idle and max 130watts under load. On powerup they will use a max. of 180watts for I've got one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001 Works nicely for measuring cumulative power usage. APC's web site also has a selector with very model-specific power consumption figures: http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/index.cfm Outstanding; thanks++ for the URL for the watt/amp/volt/Hz/VA meter. I just ordred one. Also for the ups_selector page. I'll need help getting the daemon and getting everything squared away, but that's months away. gary -Rob ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Gary Kline [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
Gary Kline wrote: Outstanding; thanks++ for the URL for the watt/amp/volt/Hz/VA meter. I just ordred one. Also for the ups_selector page. Glad to help. When you're experimenting with the meter, remember that for many devices you need to plug it in for a couple days to average out the load. Like a refrigerator, where the defrost only kicks in every few days. No so big a deal on computers, but you'll still get more accurate numbers. I saw one online review of the thing where the author was testing devices for less than an hour at a time, which is NOT going to give any accurate results. Some of my discoveries: CRTs that don't go into low power mode suck obscene amounts of power. Refrigerators aren't as bad a you might think. Most the draw in a residence is the HVAC. I'll send you (off list) a spreadsheet I was using to track stuff. -Rob ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
Hi, Rob wrote: think. Most the draw in a residence is the HVAC. what is this? HVAC? Erich ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
Erich Dollansky wrote: Hi, Rob wrote: think. Most the draw in a residence is the HVAC. what is this? HVAC? Heating and air conditioning, I believe. No? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
On Monday 08 October 2007 8:36:39 pm Erich Dollansky wrote: Hi, Rob wrote: think. Most the draw in a residence is the HVAC. what is this? HVAC? Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning Erich ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
Hi, Ray wrote: On Monday 08 October 2007 8:36:39 pm Erich Dollansky wrote: Hi, Rob wrote: think. Most the draw in a residence is the HVAC. what is this? HVAC? Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning move the machine around to be used for heating during winter. Compared to that PCs are a minor consumer. Erich ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
On Sun, Oct 07, 2007 at 11:12:00AM +0800, Erich Dollansky wrote: Hi, there are basically two types of UPS' around: online and stand-by or fly-by. The online version is much more expensive but also much better in critical conditions. Gary Kline wrote: Hi Folks, Recently, a storm happened and the power surge blew me off-line. Time to get serious about buying a UPS that will handle my four main servers for at-most, a 10-second power You have the choice between four individual boxes or one big box. Cases like this let the online version shine. Stand-by versions fail pretty often especially if you have a neighbour around running big engines powered directly from the power lines. Even big air-cons can cause the problems. Linux} computer? Is there a UPS that is designed for heavy use and a very short (5- to 10-second) uptime? I'll need one that can I do not think that it is a good advice to go for 10 second uptime. Take a rating fitting your machines (400W power rating for the machine, 600VA for the UPS) with at least 10 minutes uptime. APC supplies you with both types of UPS. All APC I have seen failing were of the fly-by type, all other were the online version. I think, it will be the same for any other brand. But do not drop dead when you see the price difference. This will be money well spend. First, thank to both you and Bart for your cmments. You were *right* about the price. Can I assume that a ballpark would be 400W for each server? (My wife is right: I've got to cut back to three computers:-) I've found one APC 2200VA with a 17minute uptime. 3 times 400W, yes? The first thing is to be sure of getting large enough UPS to bridge the few-seconds power outtages or fraction/section surges. So I need help there. Another question or two can wait. thanks for any further clues! gary Erich -- Gary Kline [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
Hi, Gary Kline wrote: On Sun, Oct 07, 2007 at 11:12:00AM +0800, Erich Dollansky wrote: *right* about the price. Can I assume that a ballpark would be 400W for each server? (My wife is right: I've got to cut back to three computers:-) I've found one APC 2200VA with a 17minute uptime. 3 times 400W, yes? there are other factors which affect this. It is the current peak when a PC starts and the phase shift it causes. The phase shift should not be a problem but the peak. I would not bother as long as you do not switch the computers on in parallel. The first thing is to be sure of getting large enough UPS to bridge the few-seconds power outtages or fraction/section surges. If they define 17 minutes, this device will be good for you. Just get the online version to avoid surprises later. Erich ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
Gary Kline wrote:
Hi Folks,
Recently, a storm happened and the power surge blew me
off-line. Time to get serious about buying a UPS that will
handle my four main servers for at-most, a 10-second power
outage. After that, shut down my computers. It took me 90
minutes of up and down and crawling around last time. That's
the *why*. Is there a best type to save me from this?
APC makes GREAT UPS's and have good support. I once blew out an APC by
miswiring a switch on a computer (don't ask). I called tech support,
they agreed that what I told them had happened shouldn't have happened,
and shipped me a new UPS for free, without any hassle. From that point
on, I swore I'd go APC first.
Do any of
these power supplies come with scripts to shutdown a Unix {or
Linux} computer?
Not that I know of...there's daemons you can install for that purpose,
though.
Is there a UPS that is designed for heavy use
and a very short (5- to 10-second) uptime?
Generally you need to add up your power requirements and match the load
to the UPS's power rating.
I'll need one that can
interface thru the COM ports or the UBS port, if that is how
these devices work.
Today it's common to have a USB interface.
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Re: what kind of UPS will work best?
Hi, there are basically two types of UPS' around: online and stand-by or fly-by. The online version is much more expensive but also much better in critical conditions. Gary Kline wrote: Hi Folks, Recently, a storm happened and the power surge blew me off-line. Time to get serious about buying a UPS that will handle my four main servers for at-most, a 10-second power You have the choice between four individual boxes or one big box. Cases like this let the online version shine. Stand-by versions fail pretty often especially if you have a neighbour around running big engines powered directly from the power lines. Even big air-cons can cause the problems. Linux} computer? Is there a UPS that is designed for heavy use and a very short (5- to 10-second) uptime? I'll need one that can I do not think that it is a good advice to go for 10 second uptime. Take a rating fitting your machines (400W power rating for the machine, 600VA for the UPS) with at least 10 minutes uptime. APC supplies you with both types of UPS. All APC I have seen failing were of the fly-by type, all other were the online version. I think, it will be the same for any other brand. But do not drop dead when you see the price difference. This will be money well spend. Erich ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
