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Kokomheart@lemmy.ca

Seeking comments on UPSes (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Subscript5676@lemmy.ca to c/buildapc@lemmy.ca

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I’ve noticed odd power outages that are becoming more and more common around my neighbourhood, and I’m renting my place, so I started looking at maybe getting a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply, not the courier company). I know it’s not particularly part of a PC, but I’m trying to use it to better safeguard my machines against sudden power outages.

Anything worth knowing or keeping in mind while I look? Recommendations are welcomed too. Thanks!

Edit: Thank you all so far for your replies. Am adding to the bottom of the post to add a bit of context to try narrow down the scope a little bit.

I’m trying to build my first NAS, with spinning drives, and would love to be able to power down the NAS gracefully in the event of an extended power out (like, more than 30s?). I have some backup solution for important stuff, but would hate to lose the videos and music files that I have.

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[–] a1studmuffin@aussie.zone 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

IMHO I'd only bother for an always-on PC (eg. a NAS), especially if it has mechanical hard drives. The goal of it should be to prevent data loss by gracefully shutting down the PC once it detects the power has gone out for long enough.

I've got one for my NAS (a dirt cheap Cyberpower UPS) and it's done the job. I replace the battery in it every few years, as SLA batteries degrade over time. You have to be comfortable disassembling and reassembling the device to do this, kind of terrible design. But cheap!

What are you hoping to achieve with a UPS versus a surge protector or just rawdogging it? I think these days with most PCs being solid state, the risk of hardware damage is pretty minimal. If you're doing important work on the PC you should be backing it up regularly to the cloud or elsewhere anyway.

[–] Subscript5676@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Am trying to build my first NAS here (and no I’m not buying one off the shelf, cause where’s the fun in that when I drive Linux on the daily?), and I do have some spinning drives. I wouldn’t lose important work; this is just for my personal use, but it would pain me to lose some of my personal stuff. My important docs are already backed up on a personal cloud, and my side projects are on some public git.

But yeah, my plan is to have just enough power in the event of a power outage to gracefully shut down the NAS. Would be really nice if I could automate that, in case I’m not around.

[–] a1studmuffin@aussie.zone 2 points 1 month ago

Sounds like a good idea then to get a UPS! Don't go bigger than you need, I got a 360W UPS (smallest I could find) and that's comfortably looking after my NAS, router and a few Raspberry Pi units.

If you connect the UPS to your NAS via USB, it can signal the system to shut down automatically. I assume you'll be using TrueNAS or Unraid, both support it.

I'm also building my first NAS after having a Synology for years. Pro-tip: do the rough math on power consumption for all your components BEFORE you commit and buy parts. You might find that changes your perspective on upfront costs, eg. pushing you towards fewer larger drives, going with SATA drives vs HBA + SAS drives etc.

[–] hitmyspot@aussie.zone 3 points 1 month ago

I had one for my business. Just be aware the battery worsens over time and they only keep power for a certain time. So, unless it is mission critical, they are not really worth it,.in my experience. For a work site that is depended on, like hosted service, it is certainly good, but you'd need it for all of the different parts of your stack including server PC, modem, router etc.

[–] lemming741@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

At work, we've had some refurb (CoastTec) APCs fail early, so buy new.

At home, I have a two APC Pros with the extended battery pack and they've been great on my homelab. I have a few Vertiv sprinkled around the house too- tv, htpc, and wifi ap. No issues with any of them.

I did have a lightning strike (blew the bark off of 3 trees) take out one APC unit. I think my PC would have been fine, but the USB connection was the weak link. The graphics card, PSU, and disks survived but mobo ram CPU did not. Nothing stops a hit like that, but I wasn't even using the USB port and wish I hadn't plugged it in.

[–] swab148@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

I've got two APCs, they both work pretty well. I don't remember the specific models, but they were both around $200 when I bought them at different times.

[–] Bo7a@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

In my opinion, stick to APC at work and cyberpower at home.

I have two cyberpowers at home right now. One of them is connected to my Nas and my primary desktop and the other is connected to my wife's desktop and our internet hardware.

We live in the middle of nowhere at the end of a power line that was installed just for us. So as you can imagine we don't get a lot of maintenance and the power here goes out multiple times every week.