I am looking for a durable battery backup solution for a combination of equipment, such as a Firewall and switch (with PoE capabilities). As of now, we’ve been using the APC Back-UPS Pro 1500, but lately it seems they are dying at an increasing rate. I would need something to keep these devices powered up for at least 30 minutes in case of power outages. I am open to other vendors. Can anyone recommend a reliable UPS setup? Thanks?

8 Spice ups

Just an option but what about keeping just enough Batteries for approx 10 mins and get a generator to keep you up for as long as the fuel lasts?

The batteries kick in and keep things smooth while the generator comes up to speed.

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That would be the best scenario. However, I do not believe generators are in the plans as of this moment. I have pitched this before and nothing has come of it. :confused:

30 minutes is a relatively long time for a UPS to run on battery power… whichever brand you choose to go with, I imagine that you’d likely need to use a solution that also offers extended battery packs to manage that kind of run time.

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If you have a serious need for battery-based power, you should shop for a serious battery-power system.

I’ve been field testing a 1500VA rack/stand system from Eaton. It has the ability to add additional battery packs to increase run time. With the network control card, you can monitor/control power remotely, as well. The price is pretty reasonable, given the value of the service it’s protecting.

Depending on the load, you can determine run-time.

5P_RT_sku.jpg

@mikedecamp

5 Spice ups

I have considered Eaton recently. Thanks! I’ll give it a look. I will also re-open the discussion of generators at our most important locations.

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When you say, dying? Do you mean the electronics are gone and they no longer work or that the replaceable batteries are dead and have now thrown an error?

I’m a big APC fan, but really, most any big brand will work, Eaton is my go-to second.

The life of the battery normally involved a couple key things, number of times your device goes on battery due to bad power (you do have yours setup to email you when it does so you can track it, correct?). Another factor is heat. Batteries do not like heat. Ambient heat, rack heat, or even heat when they are being charged.

We get about 18-20 months out of any battery we have here in the server room, and that is across big 3kV UPS units to little 1000XLs that are a decade old. We have the units go on power at least once a day. We also change them out at 18 month intervals to avoid this causing an actual power loss issue.

We’ve recently started using some Cyberpower units that have worked quite well so far. They too have network cards that allow control and reporting capabilities. They can also have extra battery packs added in for extended runtime. In our last search the prices that we got on the Cyberpower units were unbeatable. @cyberpowercal @CyberPower_USA_Canada

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Did you just hack my computer and copy and paste my post? :slight_smile: Thanx!

The Eaton 5P is pretty versatile. The Eaton 5PX is our line with extended batteries which you’ll likely need to get to 30 minutes. Here’s an overview of the 5 series (chart at the bottom of page).

Spiceworks post on selecting a new UPS: How to size your next UPS

Bonus link: The Zayo Group colocation data center in Nashville has one of our larger 9395 UPS-- in Volunteer orange!

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There is also the “line interactive” aspect. I have had far better luck with LI devices from MGE and Eaton than simple UPS…once was a car that hit a pole and shorted it. Then there is lightning strikes…been twice in my carer where when server rooms “blew up”, and supposedly, according to the sales guys for power - Line Interactive was the way to go. I can say that in any environment where I have LI there have been zero issues.

The term “UPS” has become diluted in common use. I stick to the old terms:

STANDBY - Does nothing until the power fails. Then, switches on a battery-powered inverter (hopefully) fast enough to avoid rebooting the server.

UPS - Full-time, double-conversion, sine wave power. The DC-to-AC inverter is always on. It produces a real sine wave (not square or stepped). It provides full isolation from the AC power mains. Nothing beats this for clean power.

EVERYTHING ELSE - Hybrids and compromises.

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I’ll second Eaton, been very happy with the UPSs I got, replaced APC.

@mikedecamp

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Hi there,

I took the liberty of looking up the units you’re currently using and I noticed they’re PWM sine wave. I wonder if this might be the culprit.

Typically products like POE switches need to have a pure sine wave power fed to them in order to stay up and running during power outages.

To provide a brief example of the two, think bumpy road (PWM sine wave) vs. smooth road (pure sine wave). The longer you drive your car on a bumpy road the more wear and tear on the car. Also some vehicles can’t travel down bumpy roads–same thing with POE and PWM sine wave.

So I would suggest leading with the UPS system that has a pure sine wave and possibly even a unit that has true online double conversion technology.

With a true online unit, the UPS system is always running off and charging the battery so any power issues are immediately caught and provide nothing but a seamless power.

Firewalls are typically about 30 watts and 48 port POE switches are maybe at most 750 watts (780 watts total). For this I would suggest leading with the SU1500RTXLCD2U:

http://www.tripplite.com/smartonline-120v-1.5kva-1.35kw-double-conversion-ups-2u-rack-tower-extended-run-snmpwebcard-option-lcd-display-usb-db9-serial~SU1500RTXLCD2U/

This true online UPS system will support up to 1500 va/1350 watts, has a 15 amp plug, and six 15 amp outlets.

At 780 watts the unit alone will provide about 11 minutes run time, which is really all you need to shut the equipment down, but if longer runtime is needed add the BP48V24-2U:

http://www.tripplite.com/external-48v-2u-rack-tower-battery-pack-enclosure-dc-cabling-select-ups-systems-bp48v24-2u~BP48V242U/

This will bring the runtime to about 52 minutes.

To recap, the following has been suggested:

qty. 1 SU1500RTXLCD2U

Qty. 1 BP48V24-2U

If you have questions please feel free to ask them in the thread or even send me a PM.

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Personally, I recommend you CyberPOWER CP685AVR. The best uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for people who want to keep a home network running during a blackout of an hour or less.

I wondered what happened to Wolfman Jack’s son. Apparently, he works at CyberPower!

I am SO jealous.

Gregg

Does anyone have a comparison between the CyberPower OL1500RTXL2U and Eaton 5P1500 units? Which one is cheaper to run as far as power to charge? Connected equipment is an HP ML350 G6, one workstation, four LCDs, two switches, firewall, and a PoE UAP-AC-IW access point.

I am trying to decide if I want to replace just the batteries in my 5.5 year old Eaton 5PX1500, or go with a new unit. I don’t need the additional batteries…I made a mistake when ordering the 5PX.

I will get whatever model has a NIC in it or can add to it.

Gregg

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We had an Eaton 5PX-2200RT on test for a while… Too bad it was too long for us to build it into the setup we had in mind. It’s capacity was what we needed. Too bad about the size because we would have needed quite a few of them.

What do you mean the UPS are “dying at increasing rate” ?

  1. The UPS is not powerful enough to sustain your equipment for 15min or 30min ?
  2. The UPS batteries cannot hold charge ?

I would recommend they you find a vendor available at your location, use the major brands like APC or Eaton or even Dell (they usually OEM from one of the 2 above).

One main reason is that you may have to change batteries as often as 24 months if you need up to 75% of the original charge as the batteries will lose their ability to hold charge over time.

Things to consider about the models…

  1. Bypass switch or hot-plug batteries (not readily available for smaller or desktop UPS)
  2. Power rating (2200VA or 3KVA if 1500VA is not enough)
  3. Dedicated Network card or network management
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Hi Jimbo8426,

The Vertiv equivalent would be the Liebert PSI-XR (PS1500RT3-120XR) with an external battery cabinet to achieve the 30 minutes run time.

However, since you have a back up generator I’d recommend looking into an online technology UPS such as the Liebert GXT4 (GXT4-1500RT120) with an external battery cabinet if you need 30 minutes run time. The online technology UPS is generator friendly and would not transfer to battery during generator operation as back up generators frequency typically fluctuates with other loads that cycle on/off. The frequency fluctuations cause line interactive UPS (APC BackUPS Pro, Eaton 5P/5PX, and Liebert PSI-XR) to transfer back to battery.

For more information on Vertiv UPS options, please check out our Selector Tool .

Hope this helps!

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CyberPower OL1500RTXL2U is a double-conversion UPS while the Eaton 5P1500 is a line-interactive UPS. You’ll also notice a significant price difference because of it. From a power consumption (power to charge?) point of view the OL1500RTXL2U is 90% efficient when running in normal online mode but can reach up to 95% efficiency if running in ECO Mode (high efficiency). If you do want to go with a double-conversion UPS and have the NIC pre-installed then there’s the OL1500RTXL2UN :wink:

@gregghill