Need Pure Sine Wave UPS to Gracefully Shutdown ESXi Host

[MySongRanHills]

I have an ESXi All-in-One box in a Supermicro SC846. It has redundant 1000w PSUs that are active PFC and (I believe) require a pure sine wave UPS. Used the outervision PSU calc. and worst case scenario I'll use 800-850w - and that is assuming future upgrades, currently using 600-700 watts by my best estimate.

So I'd need minimum 900 watt UPS. I'm not concerned at all about run time as long as it is 5 minutes or longer and gives time for shutdown of all VMs.

Was hoping to spend under 200$ but after I realized active pfc PSUs need pure sine wave there are no UPSs with pure sine wave that cheap, so say budget of 350$ max. Prefer to use amazon b/c I have some gift cards there.

However with all that said the most important feature is being able to get it working with ESXi. Bonus points if it doesn't require an extra Linux VM to send SSH commands to ESXi.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I have an ESXi All-in-One box in a Supermicro SC846. It has redundant 1000w PSUs that are active PFC and (I believe) require a pure sine wave UPS. Used the outervision PSU calc. and worst case scenario I'll use 800-850w - and that is assuming future upgrades, currently using 600-700 watts by my best estimate.

So I'd need minimum 900 watt UPS. I'm not concerned at all about run time as long as it is 5 minutes or longer and gives time for shutdown of all VMs.

Was hoping to spend under 200$ but after I realized active pfc PSUs need pure sine wave there are no UPSs with pure sine wave that cheap, so say budget of 350$ max. Prefer to use amazon b/c I have some gift cards there.

However with all that said the most important feature is being able to get it working with ESXi. Bonus points if it doesn't require an extra Linux VM to send SSH commands to ESXi.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

I would recommend a used older APC model off of eBay for two reasons.

1.) They are going to be cheaper, and the older ones were built like tanks!

2.) The older ones are easier to get to work on more specialized hardware. After Schneider acquired APC, the protocols started changing, and they can be a nightmare to set up on anything but 100% official hardware.


Whatever you choose, unless you have a paid license, it won't work directly with ESXi.

There are many workarounds to this, but the one I wound up with was a small dedicated linux guest, with a forwarded serial port, connected to the UPS, which - upon shutdown - sends an ssh command to the ESXi server (which must have SSH enabled) utilizing plink, which then proceeds to shut down all the guests as defined in the startup/shutdown sequence in ESXi and then finally shuts itself down.

I wound up with a used APC SmartUPS 1500 (SUA1500), which on my server with dual low power Xeon L5640's, 96GB of RAM, two SAS controllers, 12 hard drives and 5 SSD's gets me almost an hour on battery.

I got mine for $125 shipped on eBay, and then plopped two new batteries in it for just under $70 each at batteries plus.

With new batteries these things are built as tanks and as good as new. I would recommend against buying new, as professional models can be rather pricey, as well as the above mentioned compatibility issues with alternative OS:es.

This is the model I got, and it's cheaper than mine was!

 

[MySongRanHills]

I would recommend a used older APC model off of eBay for two reasons.

1.) They are going to be cheaper, and the older ones were built like tanks!

2.) The older ones are easier to get to work on more specialized hardware. After Schneider acquired APC, the protocols started changing, and they can be a nightmare to set up on anything but 100% official hardware.

Whatever you choose, unless you have a paid license, it won't work directly with ESXi.

You make some really good points. I've got no problems with used especially if I can save some scratch.

I do plan to eventually have fully licensed vCenter install to practice/play with HA, vMotion, etc, so that part isn't an issue.

There are many workarounds to this, but the one I wound up with was a small dedicated linux guest, with a forwarded serial port, connected to the UPS, which - upon shutdown - sends an ssh command to the ESXi server (which must have SSH enabled) utilizing plink, which then proceeds to shut down all the guests as defined in the startup/shutdown sequence in ESXi and then finally shuts itself down.

I was hoping to avoid a VM just for the UPS but it isn't a big deal (I have some stuff I can shift to linux to make it less of a waste).

I had previously tried to passthrough the onboard USB on a X8DTi-F- thinking that would be a method to connect a UPS -but it didn't work. Haven't installed ESXi on my X8DAH+-F yet b/c I wanted to run and test FreeNAS on bare metal before I virtualize it,but I have to think if you got passthrough working on the serial port on your X8DTE it would work for me as well since they are from the same family.

I wound up with a used APC SmartUPS 1500 (SUA1500), which on my server with dual low power Xeon L5640's, 96GB of RAM, two SAS controllers, 12 hard drives and 5 SSD's gets me almost an hour on battery.

I got mine for $125 shipped on eBay, and then plopped two new batteries in it for just under $70 each at batteries plus.

With new batteries these things are built as tanks and as good as new. I would recommend against buying new, as professional models can be rather pricey, as well as the above mentioned compatibility issues with alternative OS:es.

This is the model I got, and it's cheaper than mine was!

An hour run time is crazy, I'd be thrilled with 15 minutes. Is there anything to look out for when buying batteries for this? I see some 40$ batteries on ebay that have extremely suspect quality.

Thanks for the advice!

Edit: Is that model pure sine wave? My google-foo has failed me. The specs I can find state sine wave output, but couldn't that mean PWM Sine Wave?

 

[dandragonrage]

I've had too many issues with APC units and don't recommend them, personally. The main issue is that they demand battery calibrations or they won't work right, and for battery calibration you need to unhook your servers and hook up a constant load like a 500w halogen lamp. I had my SUA2200XL refuse to supply power from 2 car batteries I had temporarily hooked up when my home lost power for several days during hurricane Irene. Same battery chemistry and the batteries were charged and the voltage was something like 1.5V higher than the UPS batteries I had already drained but it absolutely refused to use them until they were calibrated, which meant draining them. So this piece of emergency power equipment refused to work simply because it wouldn't have been able to tell me how much uptime was remaining.

We had the same issue with our APC units at my work constantly wanting calibrations. Those ones wanted calibrations periodically even when batteries were not new. And one of those units liked to cut the power out quickly even with new batteries when they hadn't been calibrated yet - the same issue I had with my own.

At work we've had none of these issues with Eaton (PowerWare) and that's the brand I recommend now. I've also like Emerson/Liebert more than APC.

APC's SUA series is sine wave, yes. As are Liebert GXT2 and GXT3 and many Eaton units.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I've had too many issues with APC units and don't recommend them, personally. The main issue is that they demand battery calibrations or they won't work right, and for battery calibration you need to unhook your servers and hook up a constant load like a 500w halogen lamp. I had my SUA2200XL refuse to supply power from 2 car batteries I had temporarily hooked up when my home lost power for several days during hurricane Irene. Same battery chemistry and the batteries were charged and the voltage was something like 1.5V higher than the UPS batteries I had already drained but it absolutely refused to use them until they were calibrated, which meant draining them. So this piece of emergency power equipment refused to work simply because it wouldn't have been able to tell me how much uptime was remaining.

We had the same issue with our APC units at my work constantly wanting calibrations. Those ones wanted calibrations periodically even when batteries were not new. And one of those units liked to cut the power out quickly even with new batteries when they hadn't been calibrated yet - the same issue I had with my own.

At work we've had none of these issues with Eaton (PowerWare) and that's the brand I recommend now. I've also like Emerson/Liebert more than APC.

APC's SUA series is sine wave, yes. As are Liebert GXT2 and GXT3 and many Eaton units.

I'm not familiar with the 2200XL units, but when I swapped batteries my SUA1500 did not ask for a calibration. (I did initiate one, just to make sure the time left numbers were accurate, but it didn't make a difference)

It does seem a little silly to complain about them not working as you want, when you were way out in left field outside of the manufacturers intended use.

The intended use for these UPS's is not to supplant a generator to bring something back up during an outage, but rather to sit there humming along for years so that when you have that one or two power fluctuations you don't go down, and when you actually have a power outage, give you enough time to shut down cleanly.

It's almost like buying a car, and then complaining that it doesn't also drive in water.

I have been VERY happy with my two APC units. (One SUA1500 and one SUA750). it's worth noting though that these are older, pre-Schneider models, and are generally regarded as better, more stable and more compatible than their newer post-Schneider takeover stuff.

 

[dandragonrage]

I don't care if someone doesn't mind if they ask for a calibration because the FACT is that supplying power is FAR, FAR, FAR more important than accurately telling me how much power it has left to supply. Your best argument is that it's not a big deal, yet you have no argument against going for better equipment that does not have these problems. This is a big deal. A huge one. A maaaaaajor issue. Don't let your bias blind you here.

The fact of the matter is that most people are NOT going to use a UPS with a generator and it is arbitrary and unhelpful to support that major limitation. This is equipment designed to provide emergency power - period. It is NOT equipment that is supposed to be finicky, temperamental and downright shitty. But APC's is just that.

The only people that think APC is the best are the people who thought that it was the best 20 years ago. Just because you are most familiar with a specific company does not make that company's product the best and it doesn't make that company free from criticism.

Maybe it'll take a natural disaster for you to realize that APC is garbage and you defended it with/for no reason whatsoever.

This is not the first thread in which my experience has not only been ignored but criticized from people who really ought to know better. This is not some sort of trade-off. APC units have these problems. Eaton and Emerson do not. APC units have no other advantages over Eaton and Emerson. There is no reason for anyone to be responding that it doesn't matter if you can't use an emergency power device in an emergency situation.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I don't care if someone doesn't mind if they ask for a calibration because the FACT is that supplying power is FAR, FAR, FAR more important than accurately telling me how much power it has left to supply. Your best argument is that it's not a big deal, yet you have no argument against going for better equipment that does not have these problems. This is a big deal. A huge one. A maaaaaajor issue. Don't let your bias blind you here.

Well, also the fact that I have never experienced these issues.

The fact of the matter is that most people are NOT going to use a UPS with a generator and it is arbitrary and unhelpful to support that major limitation. This is equipment designed to provide emergency power - period. It is NOT equipment that is supposed to be finicky, temperamental and downright shitty. But APC's is just that.

I think you misread what I was stating. Not that they should be used with a generator, but that the intent is that they give you enough time to shut down cleanly. They are not intended to be used with marine batteries to power something up that is down suring an outage. For that, a generator would be more appropriate. This is what I saidf

The only people that think APC is the best are the people who thought that it was the best 20 years ago. Just because you are most familiar with a specific company does not make that company's product the best and it doesn't make that company free from criticism.

I fully acknowledged that they have gone downhill in later years.

Schneider has been more interested in their industrial lighting business, and just not invested in the APC UPS development much. Quality has suffered from this. They have also gone off the deep end in recent years by truing to make everything proprietary, making it more difficult to use the newer models across operating systems.

Their older models used to be the industry standard though, and these are the ones you can get for a song on eBay, and they are built like tanks, and short of a lightning strike, will likely never go bad.

 

[dandragonrage]

Yeah, well, it doesn't matter if you don't think that car batteries on a UPS are a good solution. First, lots of people do it - just Google something like: car battery ups. Secondly, the APC units work fine with them when calibrated, and it's not limited to car batteries. They can do this with new UPS batteries as well. I had this problem with the older NET series at work and then with my own SUA2200XL as mentioned. At work it wasn't with car batteries. It was with new UPS batteries and it required calibration when they were installed and then it randomly started complaining about it again like a year after I had replaced them. The batteries did not go bad in that year, but it was acting like they had until recalibrated, including the same issue where it was failing to provide power for more than a couple minutes because it thought the non-bad batteries were bad. There is no reason a UPS should ever require a calibration. You should certainly do so when you can, but to refuse to provide power when it hasn't been done is unacceptable. I ended up having to rewire stuff at work because the person who had installed our servers before I got here put almost all our servers on one UPS even though they had dual power supplies and we had 3 UPS. Though it really needed to be rewired anyway, so that wasn't a huge problem.

In this case I happened to have 2 car batteries which I was able to bring to my job to charge. I brought them home thinking I'd have some power for the night only for the UPS to think that calibration was more important. I took out the depleted UPS batteries, replaced them with these charged batteries that were over a volt higher (since the others were depleted as compared to these charged ones), and the UPS refused to work. That is all that matters. It doesn't matter that they were car batteries. The chemistry is the same. Just because the unit did not ship with large batteries does not make it acceptable.

I hope you never end up in a situation like I was in, but if you do, you will change your mind. If you started thinking about this problem from a technical viewpoint rather than a marketing "Well, APC didn't sell it for use with car batteries" viewpoint, you'd also agree with me. Ignore that they were car batteries. They were simply lead acid batteries just like the batteries APC shipped it with.

I understand that you haven't had this problem and you might be a little skeptical of whether it's a design flaw or just a few bad units, but to defend APC because you think someone should have a generator in a natural disaster where they are unable to buy a generator is a little ridiculous. But hey - feel free to buy emergency power equipment that you can't use in an emergency situation. Let me know how it works out for you when you actually need it.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I was hoping to avoid a VM just for the UPS but it isn't a big deal (I have some stuff I can shift to linux to make it less of a waste).

Unfortunately, there is no way around this.

Either you set up a linux box with APCUPSd and forward a serial (or USB port) like I did, that sends ssh shutdown commands to the host, or you install a NUT vib directly into ESXi, but it is a client only, and can not communicate directly with the UPS, so you will still need a linux nut server guest..

Even in the licensed ESXi servers you will need a guest. The official APC Powerchute software runs as a guest from a VMWARE appliace you download, and shuts down the ESXi server via VMa (which is what the license is needed for, as unlicensed and free license ESXi servers don't have VMa)

THat being said, it doesn't have to be a huge drain on resources. Give it 1 core which it will pull like 5mhz on average on, and maybe 128mb of RAM, of which it will use rather little and share the rest with the main system. You won't even notice the guest is there.

I started out trying to minimize guest counts like you, but I have found that it is easier to have a small guest for every server I use, even if thy can run on the same OS, as it eliminates most dependency and port issues when installing multiple servers, and makes it much eaiser to manage. Unless I direct I/O forward something I don't have to worry much about the RAM, as it will be shared.

I had previously tried to passthrough the onboard USB on a X8DTi-F- thinking that would be a method to connect a UPS -but it didn't work. Haven't installed ESXi on my X8DAH+-F yet b/c I wanted to run and test FreeNAS on bare metal before I virtualize it,but I have to think if you got passthrough working on the serial port on your X8DTE it would work for me as well since they are from the same family.

There are two different ways to forward USB to your guest. One is to Direct I/O forward the USB controller. This has by far the best performance, and is preferred if you absolutely need high performance USB, but it will cause the guest to pre-allocate all RAM assigned to it. Another way is just to forward individual USB devices connected to a USB controller owned by the host. This is much slower, and can have some compatibility ptoblems, but should be sufficient for a UPS, as you arent transferring much in the way of data.

I opted to go the serial route though, primarily for learning, as I got into Linux after serial ports were no longer really used much in home environments, and I wanted to learn how to set up serial interfaces in Linux. It may also be more reliable than USB.

An hour run time is crazy, I'd be thrilled with 15 minutes. Is there anything to look out for when buying batteries for this? I see some 40$ batteries on ebay that have extremely suspect quality.

I would be careful with batteries sold on eBay and even Amazon, as they are often knockoff brands that perform rather poorly. They also cost a lot to ship, as they are rather heavy.

If at all possible, I would try to get batteries locally. My local Batteries Plus had the batteries I needed for my SUA1500.

http://www.batteriesplus.com/produc...American-Power-Conversion)/SmartUPS-1500.aspx

Keep in mind you need two. They are 12V and the unit operates internally at 24V.

Thanks for the advice!

Edit: Is that model pure sine wave? My google-foo has failed me. The specs I can find state sine wave output, but couldn't that mean PWM Sine Wave?

Yep, all of APC's SUA model numbers (Named SmartUPS) are true sine wave. Watch out for their "BackUPS" models, as they are not.

As mentioned above, almoast all manufacturers have models that are true Sine Wave, I just don't know the model numbers for the other brands.

Shop smart though, not all models have good compatibility. With older APC SmartUPS units, you are almost guaranteed linux compatibility using APCUPSd. Thisd also works with many non-APC models. For most non-APC models NUT is a better choice. Check the compatibility pages for both before settling on a particular model.

You don't want to wind up with a UPS that won't work in Linux or ESXi.

 

[dandragonrage]

Here's software from Eaton: http://pqsoftware.eaton.com/explore/eng/ipm/default.htm?lang=en

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I understand that you haven't had this problem and you might be a little skeptical of whether it's a design flaw or just a few bad units, but to defend APC because you think someone should have a generator in a natural disaster where they are unable to buy a generator is a little ridiculous. But hey - feel free to buy emergency power equipment that you can't use in an emergency situation. Let me know how it works out for you when you actually need it.

Well, that's exactly it. UPS's aren't designed for, or marketed as emergency power equipment.

They are designed for two things:
1.) Uptime where power grids may be unreliable and produce short seconds long power drops.
2.) Safe shutdown in case of longer power outage.

For the safe shutdown, it is important for many setups to know the estimated remaining time during current discharge, and as such it would make perfect sense to have a calibration when a new battery is detected.

I would agree that they should probably given the end user a way to override it, but for the market they are going after, that isn't what is needed.

Also, how did the 2200XL do it's calibration? When I initiated the calibration cycle on my SUA1500, it necessitated having a power draw on the unit, so it could measure battery drain. (I plugged in two 300W halogen lamps)

Couldn't you have just started the calibration and used the required the required power draw to power your equipment?

 

[Jorona]

I have to agree that these are not emergency power inverters. I think you expecting them to work in such a way is unfair to the product.

I have several Smart UPS (Between 750va and 1500va) and acouple of Eatons (Big guys) for servers. Both are true sine wave, and both have been flawless in service. Batteries here and there, but never have they not done their job. I can also say I've ever had to calibrate the batteries in any of my Smart-UPS. Toss batteries in, charge unit, done.

Used SUA1500s are great buys, and should last you quite some time.

 

[dandragonrage]

Well, that's exactly it. UPS's aren't designed for, or marketed as emergency power equipment.

They are designed for two things:
1.) Uptime where power grids may be unreliable and produce short seconds long power drops.
2.) Safe shutdown in case of longer power outage.

For the safe shutdown, it is important for many setups to know the estimated remaining time during current discharge, and as such it would make perfect sense to have a calibration when a new battery is detected.

I would agree that they should probably given the end user a way to override it, but for the market they are going after, that isn't what is needed.

Also, how did the 2200XL do it's calibration? When I initiated the calibration cycle on my SUA1500, it necessitated having a power draw on the unit, so it could measure battery drain. (I plugged in two 300W halogen lamps)

Couldn't you have just started the calibration and used the required the required power draw to power your equipment?

Some of them work in this situation and some of them do not. The brand you are standing behind does not work in this situation and some other brands do. The brand you are standing behind offers no advantages over those other brands except being more available. But I have seen plenty of used Liebert and Eaton machines for around $100 just like APC.

If you had other reasons to prefer APC that made up for this fact, I'd have to say that it would be a trade-off and I would agree with you in certain situations. But it is not a trade-off. APC is just not a good brand, period. Only reason people like you ever defend them is because you thought their equipment was the best 20 years ago and you have just never bothered to update that assessment.

Sometimes shit happens in life. If you want to buy equipment that does not adequately handle shit happening in life, that is your business. But if you want to think from an engineer's point of view, you would realize that technologically speaking, this limitation in the APC units is not acceptable. I don't know why you refuse to think of it this way and instead insist on thinking of this issue in terms of marketing, "we don't support that use of our product." When you are in a situation like I was, you don't care what a product was sold for. You care that it is capable of doing what you want but that poorly written control software inside the unit is preventing the unit from doing its job in an emergency.

In this case I ended up using a 200W (or something like that) inverter instead. Good thing I had it. It wasn't even mine. Someone had left it at my house.

I did fiddle around with the SUA to try and get it to recognize the new batteries but I don't remember exactly what I was doing. It's been years since then. I know I had highly considered just going through with the battery calibration, but I can't remember if I either had trouble doing so or what. I know I did spend some time trying to get them to work on it.

Also, does OP have a generator? I don't think it's valid to say "you should have a generator anyway" to refute the issue I described if we're making recommendations to someone who doesn't have (and is unlikely to buy) a generator.

 

[#Grey]

APC is just not a good brand, period. Only reason people like you ever defend them is because you thought their equipment was the best 20 years ago and you have just never bothered to update that assessment.

I've been doing this for years but it still surprises me that people will come on forums and try to tell people that their opinions about their own equipment are wrong.

I've had an APC Smart-UPS for a little over two years and it has performed flawlessly, saved my computer (and valuable work) several times and well exceeded my expectations.

 

[dandragonrage]

I've been doing this for years but it still surprises me that people will come on forums and try to tell people that their opinions about their own equipment are wrong.

I've had an APC Smart-UPS for a little over two years and it has performed flawlessly, saved my computer (and valuable work) several times and well exceeded my expectations.

It still surprises me that people will come on technical forums, say they haven't had an issue with a piece of equipment, and thus automatically assume that nobody else has any issues. And when someone points out issues with that equipment, you disregard them because your sample size of 1 is all we need to determine that APC makes the absolute best UPS.

It doesn't really matter overall if you haven't had any issues with them, because there are issues with them.

With every single product on the market, you can find at least some people that have had good luck with it. This does NOT mean that every product on the market is good. I used a Deer power supply for 2-3 years (before I knew much about PSU quality) and it didn't catch on fire. If I were you, I'd be telling everyone who had a Deer PSU catch on fire the same kind of crap you just told us. People who have experienced issues with a product have experience that is MUCH more valuable than someone like you who reports no issues. Would you rather listen to the person who told you "I've used a Deer PSU for 2 years and it's been perfect," or the guy who told you that his did catch on fire? Wouldn't you at least want to look into a potential fire hazard with that brand, even if you don't automatically assume that you'll have that problem?

OP can certainly decide if my issue matters to him, but regardless, I have given useful information and you have given useless information. Go back to Amazon reviews. There have been other UPS threads on this board where other people agree that Eaton > APC. It's not just me.

Anyway, I'm done posting in here for now. OP, I recommend considering the UPS choice from a real-world point of view. How will YOU use this product? Will the drawbacks of it affect you?

Not sure why some people think it's helpful to make stupid comments like "but it says CAR battery, not UPS battery" (paraphrased) when the battery chemistry is the same and the UPS is capable of it (hence why they have battery expansion units). You guys are all still thinking from a (stupid) marketing perspective rather than engineering. It's disappointing from a technical forum such as this one. You are losing the point. It doesn't matter that it was a car battery. I just happened to have car batteries on hand. They are lead acid batteries. It is the same thing. Some car batteries aren't as deep-cycle as UPS batteries, but that wasn't the problem here. It was my first time using them for this purpose and both batteries were young and good.

To the guy below me, good job reading. Yes, I edited my post and made it even more useful. However, it was already far more useful than yours even before it was edited. Good job editing your post to make it even worse. Instead of offering useful information, whine about the only person in this thread providing useful information. As if all the APC fanboys saying "mine works for me" and "but you said car battery, not UPS battery, duh" are actually saying anything useful. If you were shopping for a car, would you place much value in the recommendation of someone who has only ever driven one car?

 

[#Grey]

Spare me your sanctimonious bullshit. You can say whatever you like about them, I never said your opinions were wrong or claimed that your issues arn't valid. I made no assumptions in my post.

I'm sorry that you've had problems, but I have every right to point out that i've had none. You seem to think that by claiming i've had no problems, i'm simply defending the company in spite of them, which is a load of old shite. If several people are reporting flawless operation of these units, the problems that you're so eager to opine about clearly arn't such a huge catastrophe, are they? Assuming you're using these as intended and replacing them with batteries that match the original spec. they should work excellently.

OP can certainly decide if my issue matters to him, but regardless, I have given useful information and you have given useless information. Go back to Amazon reviews.

Nice job retroactively editing your post to try and make it sound useful instead of just more whining. I'm sure your information about using car batteries in a situation the UPS was never designed to handle was much more helpful.

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

I wouldn't bother. He just had some bad experiences with some APC units and I think he pretty much goes around into every one of these topics maligning them. Which is fine. It's fair to report your anecdotal evidence, but I think statistically it's less significant than more numerous positive experiences. He just expects his experience to take up a larger share than it warrants.

Personally I have a used old APC Smart SUA 1500 unit off Ebay and it's been working just fine for me for a good while now. Protects me from brownouts and it's been rock solid, pure sine wave. Got it for very cheap. I have a lot of stuff hooked into it... my PC, all of my consoles, all of my monitors, etc. Just rock solid. Never croaked. Replaced the battery in it, and I don't remember it having any issues with calibration or such... but then again we really haven't had any outages or brownouts recently (that is, after I replaced the battery; we had some before that). Shrug.

 

[#Grey]

I wouldn't bother. He just had some bad experiences with some APC units and I think he pretty much goes around into every one of these topics maligning them. Which is fine. It's fair to report your anecdotal evidence, but I think statistically it's less significant than more numerous positive experiences. He just expects his experience to take up a larger share than it warrants.

Yeah, I noticed. His posts reek of some deep seated resentment twords APC that clouds any practical value his knowledge has so I don't give it much credence.

Personally I have a used old APC Smart SUA 1500 unit off Ebay and it's been working just fine for me for a good while now. Protects me from brownouts and it's been rock solid, pure sine wave. Got it for very cheap. I have a lot of stuff hooked into it... my PC, all of my consoles, all of my monitors, etc. Just rock solid. Never croaked. Replaced the battery in it, and I don't remember it having any issues with calibration or such... but then again we really haven't had any outages or brownouts recently (that is, after I replaced the battery; we had some before that). Shrug.

I have an SMT750 and I initially bought it due to brownouts. We don't get too many serious power outages here but brownouts are more frequent, usually the lights will stay on but my PC would always get knocked out. I have my computer equipment hooked up to it now. We had a pretty big outage just last week, a transformer surged about a block away and I heard it from inside. Toasted the bulbs in a couple of lamps that were turned on but my computer was fine, when the power didn't come back on 10 minutes later I shut down. If it's not back in 10 minutes it's usually not going to be back for a while.

 

[dandragonrage]

I wouldn't bother. He just had some bad experiences with some APC units and I think he pretty much goes around into every one of these topics maligning them. Which is fine. It's fair to report your anecdotal evidence, but I think statistically it's less significant than more numerous positive experiences. He just expects his experience to take up a larger share than it warrants.

Personally I have a used old APC Smart SUA 1500 unit off Ebay and it's been working just fine for me for a good while now. Protects me from brownouts and it's been rock solid, pure sine wave. Got it for very cheap. I have a lot of stuff hooked into it... my PC, all of my consoles, all of my monitors, etc. Just rock solid. Never croaked. Replaced the battery in it, and I don't remember it having any issues with calibration or such... but then again we really haven't had any outages or brownouts recently (that is, after I replaced the battery; we had some before that). Shrug.

Here's the thing - I have perfect experiences with a couple Eaton 9PX at work, an Eaton-manufactured Dell UPS I mainly use, a Liebert GXT2 I used to own, and others. I have direct experience with far more UPS than anyone else in this thread so far - at least based on what everyone else has said. If others have experience with Eaton or Liebert, they haven't mentioned it. Even if you count positive experiences higher than negative ones, I still have experience with more models of UPS than probably anyone else in this thread so far.

My experience with APC does in fact trump ANY number of "mine worked fine for me" reports that don't give any accounts of changing batteries or using it in a real-life emergency situation, etc. Like I said to the other guy, go back to Amazon reviews if all you care about is the number of people who will tell you they have had no issues with the product. That is what people on Amazon mostly do - how many 5 star reviews? Most of the reviews are useless. Again, lots of people had Deer PSUs that did not catch on fire. But I wouldn't plug one into my electrical outlets knowing what I know now. Would you?

Nobody is offering any sort of information that actually refutes what I say. "Oh, but you should have a generator anyway" when OP likely doesn't have a generator and most people don't. "You used car batteries, not UPS batteries - can't you read?" when they are the same chemistry, same voltage and the UPS does support using batteries that large.

Come on. If you want to say that APC is better than I am telling you, that is perfectly okay, but stop doing it with worthless arguments. I am seriously willing to discuss it if you guys want to actually provide useful information. Again, if you were looking to buy a car, how much faith would you put in the recommendation of someone who has only ever owned one car, but who tells you their car has not been an issue for them? The recommendation is worth more than nothing, but... barely. Now imagine that person was told that their car had a dangerous airbag made by Takata (Google it if you haven't seen news of that) and they said that they've never gotten into an accident so they don't care. That's the equivalent of what some of you guys are doing here.

If you guys want to call me out on this, I'll gladly continue to post instead of leaving it be with the previous one.

 

[MySongRanHills]

I've had too many issues with APC units and don't recommend them, personally.

Personally I have a used old APC Smart SUA 1500 unit off Ebay and it's been working just fine for me for a good while now.

Let me first say That I didn't intend to start a holy war, but my research pretty much reflects what others are saying - simply APC has fallen off although their past units were so well thought of they were almost industry standard

Either you set up a linux box with APCUPSd and forward a serial (or USB port) like I did, that sends ssh shutdown commands to the host, or you install a NUT vib directly into ESXi, but it is a client only, and can not communicate directly with the UPS, so you will still need a linux nut server guest.

Like I said it isn't a big deal, and I also have come to the conclusion you can get way more out of virtualizing with multiple 1-2 vCPU VMs rather then loading a single VM down with applications and assigning it 4 vCPUs which forces ESXi to wait for 4 free cores at once and causes contention.

There are two different ways to forward USB to your guest. One is to Direct I/O forward the USB controller. This has by far the best performance, and is preferred if you absolutely need high performance USB, but it will cause the guest to pre-allocate all RAM assigned to it. Another way is just to forward individual USB devices connected to a USB controller owned by the host.

I tried to passthrough the USB controller and VM wouldn't boot with an error i can't remember at the moment. I wasn't aware you could do it with a single device. Have you tried USB passthrough of the onboard ports on your boxes mobo?

I'm fine with using serial especially with proof it works on similar config.

I would be careful with batteries sold on eBay and even Amazon, as they are often knockoff brands that perform rather poorly.

Ya, thats what I suspected. I've got a battery plus near me so thats definitely an option.

At the risk of starting a flame war, is using car batteries to extend run time a problem(other than the possible need to calibrate)? I have to admit the possibility of having like 3 or 4 hours run time is pretty attractive.

When I initiated the calibration cycle on my SUA1500, it necessitated having a power draw on the unit, so it could measure battery drain. (I plugged in two 300W halogen lamps)

Why does everyone have halogen lights? Is having a steady constant load a requirement for calibration? If it is I'm not sure what I have lying around that I would use.

Found a good deal on a SUA2200RM2U which supports 1980w, which would allow me to add my AP , cable modem, and some other stuff without worrying about drawing to much. Being rack mountable is a bonus as well.

I'm open to other brands than APC , but there are a lot of people who have set up ESXi shutdown with APCs, so the documentation and proof of concept is there, i simply haven't seen it for other brands with the exception of cyberpower.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Here's the thing - I have perfect experiences with a couple Eaton 9PX at work, an Eaton-manufactured Dell UPS I mainly use, a Liebert GXT2 I used to own, and others. I have direct experience with far more UPS than anyone else in this thread so far - at least based on what everyone else has said. If others have experience with Eaton or Liebert, they haven't mentioned it. Even if you count positive experiences higher than negative ones, I still have experience with more models of UPS than probably anyone else in this thread so far.

My experience with APC does in fact trump ANY number of "mine worked fine for me" reports that don't give any accounts of changing batteries or using it in a real-life emergency situation, etc. Like I said to the other guy, go back to Amazon reviews if all you care about is the number of people who will tell you they have had no issues with the product. That is what people on Amazon mostly do - how many 5 star reviews? Most of the reviews are useless. Again, lots of people had Deer PSUs that did not catch on fire. But I wouldn't plug one into my electrical outlets knowing what I know now. Would you?

Nobody is offering any sort of information that actually refutes what I say. "Oh, but you should have a generator anyway" when OP likely doesn't have a generator and most people don't. "You used car batteries, not UPS batteries - can't you read?" when they are the same chemistry, same voltage and the UPS does support using batteries that large.

Come on. If you want to say that APC is better than I am telling you, that is perfectly okay, but stop doing it with worthless arguments. I am seriously willing to discuss it if you guys want to actually provide useful information. Again, if you were looking to buy a car, how much faith would you put in the recommendation of someone who has only ever owned one car, but who tells you their car has not been an issue for them? The recommendation is worth more than nothing, but... barely.

You used a UPS as an emergency power inverter. Nothing in and of itself is wrong with that, if it works.

All I am pointing out is that it seems unfair to complain as much as you are about it, given that this is not what it was designed for. It's not how it was intended to be used.

Its failure to be a good emergency power inverter, doesn't mean that it is a poor UPS. UPS:es are designed to hum along next to your computer, protect against brown outs, and provide a clean shut down in case of a major outage, and I find the SUA1500 and SUA750 work fantastically here.

If the OP had come in and asked for a UPS that can also work as an excellent emergency power inverter, you may have had a point, but that's not what he asked for.

And besides, it seems like something related to your specific model, as the rest of us have repeatedly stated that we never had to perform calibrations when replacing batteries.

Just like our good experiences don't negate your bad experience, your bad experience doesn't negate our good ones either.

We are here telling the OP what has worked for us. APC SUA1500's are very popular in this forum because they are dirt cheap on eBay, built as tanks and work well.

I have two APC SUA UPS's, one SUA1500 which my server runs through, and one SUA750 which I have my switch, ONT, Wifi AP, Security camera and a few other small things hooked up to.

Both have worked flawlessly as UPS:es, neither required re-calibration when swapping batteries, and I like them.

The Eatons you recommend might be great too, but I can't speak to them, as I have never tried one.

 

[dandragonrage]

Let me first say That I didn't intend to start a holy war, but my research pretty much reflects what others are saying - simply APC has fallen off although their past units were so well thought of they were almost industry standard

No problem. Many of us are passionate about hardware (and software for that matter). Most of us are just having a discussion.

Like I said it isn't a big deal, and I also have come to the conclusion you can get way more out of virtualizing with multiple 1-2 vCPU VMs rather then loading a single VM down with applications and assigning it 4 vCPUs which forces ESXi to wait for 4 free cores at once and causes contention.

Pretty sure that's not how it works - vCPU time is allocated whenever it can be and the hypervisor isn't going to wait until 4 cores are free before allowing any commands to execute. It depends on your workload. There are also additional downsides to having more VMs - you get a LOT more overhead, especially in RAM. But sometimes you get more control and flexibility. The right way to do this really varies and we can't give you a general recommendation to simply give VMs 1, 2, or 4 CPU cores.

I tried to passthrough the USB controller and VM wouldn't boot with an error i can't remember at the moment. I wasn't aware you could do it with a single device. Have you tried USB passthrough of the onboard ports on your boxes mobo?

Some motherboards work better than others. Easiest thing to check is to make sure you were passing the entire controller through (as in every device provided by the controller) and not just some of it.

At the risk of starting a flame war, is using car batteries to extend run time a problem(other than the possible need to calibrate)? I have to admit the possibility of having like 3 or 4 hours run time is pretty attractive.

It's fine to do, but some UPS will charge them slowly. Enterprise gear should all charge them at a reasonable rate, but home stuff could take a full day or something to do it. The best are those which offer expansion battery packs like my SUA2200XL does. You can use the expansion battery connector if you can find the right connector (some use PowerPole connectors which are easy to find) or you can use the regular battery connectors from inside the unit and extend them out. You don't need to increase the wire gauge if the batteries are right next to the chassis, but I would increase it (lower number) if they are several feet or more away.

Do make sure to buy a quality battery, though, because if you buy Duralast's cheapest battery, it won't be constructed well enough to use with many discharge cycles. A cheap car battery could very easily die before you drain it even just 10 times and almost definitely by 100. You can go with better batteries like Deka Intimidator or you can use marine batteries which can be cycled more than regular car batteries. Avoid any gel batteries (including batteries specifically marketed for UPS - gel cell is crap, period - and the voltage is also a bit different with gel cell). If the area is vented, you can use flooded cell or AGM. If ventilation is poor, which is likely, use only sealed AGM batteries.

Why does everyone have halogen lights? Is having a steady constant load a requirement for calibration? If it is I'm not sure what I have lying around that I would use.

Yeah, it needs to be a constant load. Halogen lights are generally recommended for being cheap, available, and because you can get pretty high power ones with no trouble. You can use other stuff, but computers themselves aren't recommended. Maybe if you left a couple computers on at idle with power management disabled to keep their draw steady, you might get something close enough. But it's probably easier to just get some halogen lights than it is to reconfigure your server(s) to work in that way. Besides, in a real enterprise environment, your servers wouldn't be coming down for this job. You would disconnect one PSU of your servers from the UPS you are calibrating which would leave the other PSUs (on a different UPS) running and allow the server to work. Then you would hook up a halogen light or whatever to the UPS you're working on.

Found a good deal on a SUA2200RM2U which supports 1980w, which would allow me to add my AP , cable modem, and some other stuff without worrying about drawing to much. Being rack mountable is a bonus as well.

I'm open to other brands than APC , but there are a lot of people who have set up ESXi shutdown with APCs, so the documentation and proof of concept is there, i simply haven't seen it for other brands with the exception of cyberpower.

Eaton is also good in this regard with the software they offer (like APC it is free for small setups), but you are right in that there is a lot of info out there about APC units. Do keep in mind that APC units can have different pinouts if you use RS232 for control and the adapter is not included with the UPS. If you use USB, this shouldn't be an issue, though USB UPS support isn't quite as good as RS232. But you should be able to get USB working fine regardless.

 

[#Grey]

My experience with APC does in fact trump ANY number of "mine worked fine for me" reports that don't give any accounts of changing batteries or using it in a real-life emergency situation, etc. Like I said to the other guy, go back to Amazon reviews if all you care about is the number of people who will tell you they have had no issues with the product.

What is a "real-life emergency situation"? Because it has protected my computer during numerous power outages over the course of the last two years and has worked exactly as it should every time. What more information do you want from me? I don't have any bad experiences to spend an hour whining about so what can I say beyond "it works fine". I'm fine to let you like Eaton but you clearly have an axe to grind with anyone who supports APC.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

At the risk of starting a flame war, is using car batteries to extend run time a problem(other than the possible need to calibrate)? I have to admit the possibility of having like 3 or 4 hours run time is pretty attractive.

Some people do this. From my reading, as long as you use a high end UPS, and know what you are doing with the electricals (with large batteries, you'll definitely want some fuses or circuit breakers in line with your custom wires)

There are some risks involved, including overheating and fire in low end UPS:es with insufficient cooling (shouldn't be a problem on high power SUA's) and hazardous gases if you use the wrong batteries.

Car batteries are not intended for deep discharge. You'll want to ask for deep cycle batteries (and make sure they are sealed, from the gas perspective) in order to do this. The doneside is these batteries can be on the expensive side

Car batteries are inteneded for short bursts of high amps to crank engines at start, not for long slow discharges. They won't last long if used for this.

So, it is perfectly possible to do this. I considered it for a while, but after I priced out two deep cycle batteries of the size I wanted, as well as battery boxes for them, it wound up being a lot of money. That and I already had my server up and running, and I'd already spent mponey on fresh batteries for the SUA1500, so I didn't want to waste my battery investment, or take my server down to swap in custom batteries.

I've also found that power outages in my area are generally one of two types. Either they are short (a flicker of power, or <15min of outage) or they are really long due to a storm and multiple downed power lines and they last longer than I could withstand without a big array of batteries, which I am unwilling to invest the time, money and space in.

So I decided to just stick with the units as-is.

Apparently, as dandragonrage has discovered, there is also the risk that a battery change can force a calibration, so if you go this route, set it all up before the power goes out

Why does everyone have halogen lights? Is having a steady constant load a requirement for calibration? If it is I'm not sure what I have lying around that I would use.

Not exactly sure why halogen lights. I have a set of work lights I bought cheap at Home Depot which I use to provide extra light for photography. When I read up on re-calibration people suggested halogen lights, and I had mine right there, so I just used them.

Again, let me restate, that I didn't HAVE to recalibrate. I just figured I'd do it, while I had everything there and was setting up. It didn't make much (if any) of a difference.

Found a good deal on a SUA2200RM2U which supports 1980w, which would allow me to add my AP , cable modem, and some other stuff without worrying about drawing to much. Being rack mountable is a bonus as well.

I'm not familiar with this particular model. I presume it will work, but checking compatibility lists wouldn't hurt. Also, ask if it includes the serial cable. APC UPS:es use a non-standard serial cable, and won't work with a standard 9-pin one.

I'm open to other brands than APC , but there are a lot of people who have set up ESXi shutdown with APCs, so the documentation and proof of concept is there, i simply haven't seen it for other brands with the exception of cyberpower.

I can't speak to other setups than my own with APCUPSd and SSH, but if you go this route, I'd be happy to help. The NUT configuration with a NUT client installed directly on ESXi using a vib, wuth a separate NUT server looks pretty neat too.

The place where people tend to have problems is server side with compatibility in communicating with the UPS. APCUPSd tends to work best with APC UPS:es, with almost universal support, apart from some newer models (and some really really old ones). NUT works great with some other specific models, but if shopping for other models, I'd make sure I double check the compatibility list, as it is pretty hit or miss.

Also, use this link (and change the wattage figure at the end, to your predicted wattage to get estimated uptime!

http://www.apc.com/products/configure/index.cfm?base_sku=SUA2200RM2U&totalwatts=50

Also, looking at pictures, not sure what connections this model has on the back by default. You may need a smartslot card to manage it.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Also, looking at pictures, not sure what connections this model has on the back by default. You may need a smartslot card to manage it.

Never mind, power cable just blocked the view on the APC website.

It has both serial and USB ports by default, but it won't work with standard serial or strandard USB cables.

You need an APC RJ45 to USB cable or a special APC serial cable. Easy to find on eb=Bay for <$20. I've had the most luck with serial, but USB should work too.

 

[dandragonrage]

What is a "real-life emergency situation"? Because it has protected my computer during numerous power outages over the course of the last two years and has worked exactly as it should every time. What more information do you want from me? I don't have any bad experiences to spend an hour whining about so what can I say beyond "it works fine". I'm fine to let you like Eaton but you clearly have an axe to grind with anyone who supports APC.

In my case, it was Hurricane Irene where I lost power for around 5 days. I actually had a generator which was lent to me by a coworker, but it was a VERY bad generator not even capable of driving the SUA2200XL or Liebert GXT2 I had. It was completely useless. And stores were completely sold out of generators so I couldn't go buy a decent one. Actually, I don't know if this is an issue with the USB cords as well. It might be...

There is nothing wrong with having a good experience with APC. But I've already explained why simply owning a product and not having issues is not the full story and is not the most useful advice. It is not useless, but it is really not all that helpful, either.

What more information do I want from you? I don't care what amount of information you provide. The more you can provide, the more useful what you say is to this discussion. But it would be helpful if you wouldn't claim that "I've had a brownout while using this device and it worked" is comparable to "I tried to use this in an emergency situation and it didn't work, here's why, and here's a similar story about this brand from my experience at work. And here is some equipment I've used in the time since then that hasn't exhibited this problem/design flaw."

You came after me, man.

You need an APC RJ45 to USB cable or a special APC serial cable. Easy to find on eb=Bay for <$20. I've had the most luck with serial, but USB should work too.

As I mentioned before, be careful if you go for the serial one. APC has at least 2 if not 3+ different pinouts they've used over the years. I had a friend buy a "generic" APC serial cable only to find out it was the wrong pinout for his unit.

You used a UPS as an emergency power inverter. Nothing in and of itself is wrong with that, if it works.

All I am pointing out is that it seems unfair to complain as much as you are about it, given that this is not what it was designed for. It's not how it was intended to be used.

UPS are meant for emergency power, period. Even when used with a generator, it is still emergency power. I understand that you do not put importance on the hurricane situation I described. Personally, I still had APC units (older than my SUA-series - the ones at work were NET-series (which I also owned 2 of int he past)) at work decide batteries were dead randomly. Turned out they just needed calibration. The batteries were maybe 6-12 months old and good brand. Did not need to replace them but did have to recalibrate for reasons I cannot understand. We did have some servers go down as a result, yet when recalibrated it worked fine. We replaced it very shortly after with excellent (so far, anyway) Eaton 9PX units.

I just can't understand why you wouldn't expect them to provide power in such a situation. Yeah, it's unlikely to happen. It's the first time I'd experienced something like that. But if you have a choice between a good brand without issues regarding battery calibration and a usually-good brand that can be problematic regarding calibrations, why would you argue for the latter?

A UPS is an inverter. Period. It is an inverter with battery storage and a charger and automatic transfer switch integrated. It should be treated like an inverter and you should expect a UPS to do anything that an inverter can do. I understand that you do not require this, but my question is of why you are lowering your standards just to allow APC to remain within your consideration.

I understand that you admit to having little to no experience with Liebert and Emerson, but I don't think that is sufficient reason to argue against me. It is grounds for an "I don't know if what he is saying is true," not for telling me that my requirements for a good UPS are too high.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

One thing I just noticed:

You should be aware that the SUA2200RM2U uses a Nema 5-20 plug , not the standard home Nema 5-15.

Make sure you have one of these outlets, or you'll need an electrician to install one before you can use it.

The regular 5-15 outlet has a max of 15amps at 120VAC (so max 1800VAC), and wouldn't be able to support the max amount of power the SUA2200RM2U can pull.

 

[#Grey]

In my case, it was Hurricane Irene where I lost power for around 5 days. I actually had a generator which was lent to me by a coworker, but it was a VERY bad generator not even capable of driving the SUA2200XL or Liebert GXT2 I had. It was completely useless. And stores were completely sold out of generators so I couldn't go buy a decent one. Actually, I don't know if this is an issue with the USB cords as well. It might be...

There is nothing wrong with having a good experience with APC. But I've already explained why simply owning a product and not having issues is not the full story and is not the most useful advice. It is not useless, but it is really not all that helpful, either.

What more information do I want from you? I don't care what amount of information you provide. The more you can provide, the more useful what you say is to this discussion. But it would be helpful if you wouldn't claim that "I've had a brownout while using this device and it worked" is comparable to "I tried to use this in an emergency situation and it didn't work, here's why, and here's a similar story about this brand from my experience at work. And here is some equipment I've used in the time since then that hasn't exhibited this problem/design flaw."

You came after me, man.

I commented because a "5-day power outage during a hurricane" is neither what the product was designed for nor is it what the OP asked for. If you want to argue that another brand went "above and beyond" as a selling point, that's one thing, but you can't use performance in a situation the product was never designed nor marketed for as a linch pin in your arguement. Not if you want to be taken seriously, anyway.

From my perspective your arguement has about as much relevance as debating the offroad performance of a 350Z. ex. "Sure it's not designed for offroad, but it's a car right? So it should be able to handle it". That's hardly a fair measure of the APC unit's effectiveness at its primary function. Now, you say that it also had a calibration issue in a non-emergency situation at your work which is a fair talking point, and the only thing I can say about that is to reiterate my previous sentiment that my unit has not required any spontaneous calibration. From a quick Google search (hardly the be-all end-all but nonetheless) I don't see any glaring issues about calibration from other users, either. Which is not to say you didn't have a problem, but it sounds more like an isolated incident.

If you want to simplify my post to "it protected me during a brownout once" (even though I provided a much longer story directly afterwards) I can simplify yours to "I had a bad experience with APC once". Yeah, well, someone is always going to have a bad experience.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

As I mentioned before, be careful if you go for the serial one. APC has at least 2 if not 3+ different pinouts they've used over the years. I had a friend buy a "generic" APC serial cable only to find out it was the wrong pinout for his unit.

From what I can find online, this model should be compatible with APC Part# 940-0024C, # 940-0024B, # 940-0024D or 940-1524(black cable).

Your friend probably either got a REALLY old pre-smart cable, or had a pre-smart cable compatible APC unit.

I just can't understand why you wouldn't expect them to provide power in such a situation. Yeah, it's unlikely to happen. It's the first time I'd experienced something like that. But if you have a choice between a good brand without issues regarding battery calibration and a usually-good brand that can be problematic regarding calibrations, why would you argue for the latter?

Apart from the fact that using custom batteries is totally unsupported, and when new, probably would have voided your warranty?

I see it a little bit as I see over-clocking.

Manufacturer guarantees that it works as they have specified it. If you use it outside of that specification, for something else than it was intended and tested for, you are on your own. Some models might work, others won't, but since it isn't how they were sold, you can hardly blame the manufacturer for that.

A UPS is an inverter. Period. It is an inverter with battery storage and a charger and automatic transfer switch integrated. It should be treated like an inverter and you should expect a UPS to do anything that an inverter can do. I understand that you do not require this, but my question is of why you are lowering your standards just to allow APC to remain within your consideration.

While I am glad these worked for you in that way, if you were to ask the manufacturers I'm pretty sure they would recommend against it, and use "warranty cancellation" type language as well.

There might even be Liebert or Emerson models that act up too when used outside of intended use. Who knows? Because they don't guarantee them to function in this manner.

With any product, your expectations should start and end with the manufacturers marketing claims. Anything else is a bonus, not an expectation.

When you buy a product, you buy what the manufacturer has designed and tested it to do. Nothing outside of that is a guarantee.

I understand that you admit to having little to no experience with Liebert and Emerson, but I don't think that is sufficient reason to argue against me. It is grounds for an "I don't know if what he is saying is true," not for telling me that my requirements for a good UPS are too high.

I never questioned or doubted your suggestions, I simply pushed back on your all-out assault on APC because of one issue you've had with them, when there are plenty of others in these forums who have had them for years and think they are great.

 

[Jorona]

I do have experience with Eaton, APC, Cyberpower, Best Power, and Tripplite. The APCs have been just as or more reliable then any of the other brands. The Eatons are what I personally prefer, but the used SUA1500 is about the best damn UPS for the normal user. I also think the SUA1000XL is a great UPS to buy used.

 

[MySongRanHills]

Pretty sure that's not how it works - vCPU time is allocated whenever it can be and the hypervisor isn't going to wait until 4 cores are free before allowing any commands to execute.

I've read about this extensively-that is exactly how it works. That's why the recommendation is to start all VMs with 1 vCPU and add as needed, b/c if you assign a VM 8 vCPUs to execute any instruction it must wait for 8 free cores and will cause contention.

It's fine to do, but some UPS will charge them slowly. You don't need to increase the wire gauge if the batteries are right next to the chassis, but I would increase it (lower number) if they are several feet or more away.

Thanks , this was helpful.

Yeah, it needs to be a constant load. Halogen lights are generally recommended for being cheap, available, and because you can get pretty high power ones with no trouble.

Home Depot's got a 500w Halogen for 10$ so what the hell I'll join the club

Car batteries are not intended for deep discharge. You'll want to ask for deep cycle batteries (and make sure they are sealed, from the gas perspective) in order to do this.
..after I priced out two deep cycle batteries of the size I wanted, as well as battery boxes for them, it wound up being a lot of money. That and I already had my server up and running, and I'd already spent money on fresh batteries for the SUA1500..

Thanks for the warning on car batteries, in the back of my mind I knew this, but until you mentioned it I hadn't even thought about it.

I'm assuming I can talk to the battery plus people and make sure I end up with the right stuff. Guides I've seen do show what your speaking of(in line fuses/breakers) so If I go that route I would definitely need to plan that out.

I've also found that power outages in my area are generally one of two types. Either they are short (a flicker of power, or <15min of outage) or they are really long due to a storm and multiple downed power lines...

My area is the same type of outages. If I can get some deep cycle/marine batteries in my price range I'd do that, but since I don't really need the extra run time it isn't a must. Since I have to buy batteries either way(stock replacements or bigger deep cycles) it would make since to buy the best I can afford. Totally get why you didn't since you already had invested the cash in the stock replacement batteries.

From what I can find online, this model should be compatible with APC Part# 940-0024C, # 940-0024B, # 940-0024D or 940-1524(black cable).
You should be aware that the SUA2200RM2U uses a Nema 5-20 plug , not the standard home Nema 5-15.

Didn't know about the diff. pin out on serial cables thanks for that. Yeah I did know about the Nema plug. I was already planning on adding a 20a or 30a breaker just for my servers/switches/routers etc. so I'll just terminate it with a Nema 5-20

I believe the SUA2200RM2U uses 48v...so does that mean (4)12v batteries in series or could I find 24v or 48v? buying 4 batteries even if they are just stock replacements could be cost prohibitive.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I believe the SUA2200RM2U uses 48v...so does that mean (4)12v batteries in series or could I find 24v or 48v? buying 4 batteries even if they are just stock replacements could be cost prohibitive.

I don't have any personal experience with this model, but from a quick google search it does appear like it takes 4 smaller batteries which cost $33 a piece at Batteries Plus.

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

On the battery my used SUA1500 came with I had multiple full outages that lasted sometimes hours. During all of these times the SUA came on flawlessly and gave my massive power hog SLI machine (along with my 3 monitors and everything) plenty of time to shut down.

 

[dandragonrage]

I believe the SUA2200RM2U uses 48v...so does that mean (4)12v batteries in series or could I find 24v or 48v? buying 4 batteries even if they are just stock replacements could be cost prohibitive.

Not sure on that but my SUA2200XL is 24V. Not all APC units are (or any units of the same brand), though, and that one could very well be 48V. For 48V, you can use 4 12v, 2 24v (relatively hard to find), 4 6v (less available than 12v but much more than 24v) or even do something really silly like 32 1.5V (but high current so not D-cells) or 10 4.8V batteries.. Keep it lead-acid and again if inside the home with no particular ventilation (to outside), stick to sealed AGM deep-cycle batteries. 4x12V is by far the easiest (and probably cheapest) method of obtaining 48V while staying with lead acid. You can't use lithium-ion batteries, for example, because you would need a unit that was made for them. Charging them is somewhat different and it could be dangerous to use the wrong type of charger even if the voltage is the same.

You could also look for a UPS that uses 24V or 36V instead.

Your cheapest decent option is probably Duralast marine batteries from Autozone, marine Diehard batteries from Sears, or marine Exide batteries from lots of places including (I think) Wal-mart. Personally I recommend Deka batteries but they cost more and are harder to find. Other top-end batteries that should last longer are Odyssey and Sears Diehard Platinum marine batteries. Duralast Gold (again, marine) are decent and a better option than the cheaper ones though really not my first choice. Generally the higher-end batteries which obviously cost more really do last longer when used in the extremes, but if you shut down your computer without fully depleting the battery, they can last a long time. It's only when you basically let the thing run out of battery power that battery life is significantly impacted.

*Side-note: I don't recommend Optima batteries. Those are fairly popular and available at Autozone as well. The old ones were gel-cell (a bad thing) but otherwise quality. The newer ones are AGM (a good thing) but low-quality.

 

[MySongRanHills]

Pulled the trigger and got a APC SUA2200RM2U for 100$ shipped, price was to good to say no.

I spent some time looking up battery prices and any decent deep cycle battery is over 100$ and considering I need 4 of them that puts it out of my price range . So I'll hit up batteries plus and get (4) of the 33$ replacement batteries.