Re: Battery Backup

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Three words: Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR)

If your UPS doesn't have it, you'll regret it. Russ is right in saying that
any fluctuation in voltage is bad for computers, especially servers. In my
area, we refer to our local electric service as FPL (frequent power loss).

Following a hurricane-induced nine-day outage, I lost a computer (not a
server) when the lights came back on. The APC Back-UPS 350 didn't clamp
down fast enough, and a surge caused the power supply of the desktop to catch
fire.

[...what's that strange light behind the tower?...omg, it's on fire!...blow,
blow, blow...doh! It's an electrical fire, idiot...switch OFF...sigh,
motherboard fried.]



"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" wrote:

I have had bad luck with some of the ones that APC describes as "Standby."
These are workstation UPSs, not server, but they seem not to work even for
that. I just replaced a relatively new one because it would not fail over
fast enough to keep the PC from rebooting. IMO you need one that's
described as "line interactive" - those do fail over seamlessly.

You should look at the product info on the APC site. Many of the Back-UPS
models, especially the higher end ones, will gracefully shut down hardware
in the event of a power failure. The Smart-UPS models offer much more
monitoring - power quality, logging, etc. - as well as some added features
like the ability to remotely shut down or restart hardware with the UPS
software, remotely monitor (I use this here at the office), control multiple
servers from one UPS, etc.

I'm on the fence about Smart-UPS where money is a big factor. I think that
personally, on a limited budget, I'd get a better Back-UPS model, rather
than an inadequate capacity Smart-UPS model. I have Smart-UPS's here at the
office and I've been extremely happy with them - they're bulletproof. But
on my home network, I have a couple of high-end Back-UPS's, and I'm happy
with them as well. With Back-UPS, high-end is an important distinction,
because as I said, the cheaper ones are definitely not adequate. But the
high-end ones are still significantly less expensive than Smart-UPSs.


"Brandon" <bsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OaKdT3T1HHA.4492@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks for the input. One more thing. Can someone tell me what is so
"smart" about the APC Smart-UPS line as opposed to their "traditional" UPS
line? Also, are there certain UPS brands you would recommend that I
avoid?

--
Brandon


"Brandon" <bsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23jffhgT1HHA.3640@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Just wanted to think this through a little bit . . . what benefits are
there for having a UPS battery backup on the SBS server?

If the power goes out for hours because of a storm (the most common
occurrence we have), the server will shut down anyway even with a UPS, so
what was the benefit? If the power goes out, only the server is up
anyway because not every workstation/switch/router has a battery backup .
. . so what is the benefit? If there is a quick power glitch, the server
being up wouldn't seem to "save" anything because the clients that are
communicating with the server will have gone down, and would have already
broken the connection.

I guess I want to be able to genuinely justify this expense in my mind.

--
Brandon





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