Is a UPS essential?

[Rosco]

Apologies if this has been covered, quick scanning of the forums didn't turn anything up.

So, alot of articles and posts have been mentioning that a UPS is essential when using a NAS. I can completely understand that reasoning for a business or what have you where downtime is inexcusable, but for a home user like myself, is it really that important?

My understanding is that the hard disks themselves these days have built-in protections for sudden power loss situations, and that providing a decent surge protection should be enough. Power goes out in my house, nevermind the NAS, the TV I was streaming that movie to would also be out anyway.

That said, PCs and the like all like to be shut down properly in an effort to abate data corruption.

Thoughts?

 

[stevech]

Not essential. But prudent. Murphy prevails.

 

[Kris404]

It is usually not the power surge you have to be worried about but logical corruption. Similar to yanking a USB memory stick without ejecting - may work most times but the file system could also get corrupted at other times.

 

[thiggins]

I have all of my gear on UPS. They have gotten very inexpensive and it's cheap insurance. Brownouts, surges and other power line glitches don't help product reliability.

 

[L&LD]

Running electronics/computers/nas' without a UPS should be against the law.

Many random glitches, irritations and other unexplained phenomenon seem to go away for my customers when they have a proper UPS protecting their equipment.

As already stated above; it is not the physical protection that make UPS's indispensable, rather, it is the mysterious (logical) software hiccups that make them not only worthwhile, but mandatory if you lean towards a setup and forget attitude towards todays tools.

Today's type of UPS's will die a natural death when power over air is available, prevalent and dependable for any and all our electronic tools.

 

[thiggins]

Today's type of UPS's will die a natural death when power over air is available, prevalent and dependable for any and all our electronic tools.

And you don't think PoA will have glitches?

 

[L&LD]

And you don't think PoA will have glitches?

That's why I added 'dependable' before I hit submit.

 

[CaptainSTX]

One less thing to worry about and by spending $50 - $80 you eliminate one potential source of problems.

A short power outage that you don't notice may result in your equipment rebooting/ restarting in the wrong sequence and they will fail to pull DHCP address either on the WAN or LAN. Very frustrating if one piece of equipment power cycles and another doesn't.

Very frustrating if your network isn't working when you are traveling and you can't get in using VPN and/or FTP.

 

[Kris404]

That's why I added 'dependable' before I hit submit.

Tesla would be excited (in his grave)

 

[Dennis Wood]

A "dirty" shutdown may also result in a day or two of RAID volume rebuild, which if business critical may result in a NAS unit offline, and/or a significant performance hit during verification. Enabling memory cache in a system without UPS is similarly a bad idea.

It's not enough to connect a UPS..your server or NAS must also be in communication with it to ensure proper shutdown in case of power events. Qnap's OS (and I'm guessing others) allows master/slave UPS setups where one NAS is connected to the UPS, and the other is not, however communicates with the UPS "master". This is a way to use dumb UPS units in concert with more expensive smart versions...or have two NAS units running off a single UPS.

 

[stevech]

A "dirty" shutdown may also result in a day or two of RAID volume rebuild, which if business critical may result in a NAS unit offline, and/or a significant performance hit during verification. Enabling memory cache in a system without UPS is similarly a bad idea.

It's not enough to connect a UPS..your server or NAS must also be in communication with it to ensure proper shutdown in case of power events. Qnap's OS (and I'm guessing others) allows master/slave UPS setups where one NAS is connected to the UPS, and the other is not, however communicates with the UPS "master". This is a way to use dumb UPS units in concert with more expensive smart versions...or have two NAS units running off a single UPS.

I have my NAS and key PCs/router/switch on UPS. A $130, 1500VA UPS supporting all.

Alas, more than once, I have abruptly killed the power to the NAS, but no file system damage so far:

• Twice, bumped the on/off switch on the power strip. It's touchy
• 2-3 times, power cord fell out of back of NAS as I moved it while running.
• Once, not abrupt, but UPS took over the load even though mains power was on. Why? UPS is plugged into an outlet with a GFI. And outlet is daisy-chained to outlet on patio - that got wet due to leaky seal in big rain. Beware GFI used for electronics.

PS: My small 2-bay NAS doesn't use RAID. Volume 2 backs up volume 1. Unlikely that both would have pending writes at the same time, and that it would fail to be protected by the journaling file system. Worst case, backups of NAS are on USB3. And VVIP files on 32GB SD card always in NAS, automated backups. I just don't trust RAID for a small NAS. Too many horror stories, all brands.

 

[Rosco]

Wow, thanks everyone for your input!

I've been convinced.

I've also been looking into UPSs, and it seems APC and CyperPower are the brands to consider. I'm seeing chatter about whether or not a UPS supports sine wave power flow, but is that something I need to worry about provided I intend to get a small unit to power my future NAS (likely a DS412+, planning RAID5), my router, and my laptop (whose battery pack is 100% shot, and I haven't replaced).

Figure a 500-750W unit should be enough to provide everything enough time to shutdown cleanly.

I also understand from reading this forum that it's possible to have the NAS USB'd to the UPS and let it deal with the status reporting, then broadcast on the network to other protected devices (my Win7 laptop)? There's also a Mac on the network, not to be connected to the UPS, so would it want to shut down too if the NAS is broadcasting status reports on the network? Or would that all be configurable?

Also, out of curiosity, what's a GFI do, and how to I tell if I have one?

 

[stevech]

Wow, thanks everyone for your input!

I've been convinced.

I've also been looking into UPSs, and it seems APC and CyperPower are the brands to consider. I'm seeing chatter about whether or not a UPS supports sine wave power flow, but is that something I need to worry about provided I intend to get a small unit to power my future NAS (likely a DS412+, planning RAID5), my router, and my laptop (whose battery pack is 100% shot, and I haven't replaced).

Figure a 500-750W unit should be enough to provide everything enough time to shutdown cleanly.

I also understand from reading this forum that it's possible to have the NAS USB'd to the UPS and let it deal with the status reporting, then broadcast on the network to other protected devices (my Win7 laptop)? There's also a Mac on the network, not to be connected to the UPS, so would it want to shut down too if the NAS is broadcasting status reports on the network? Or would that all be configurable?

Also, out of curiosity, what's a GFI do, and how to I tell if I have one?

Sine Wave UPSes are much more expensive and seemingly not needed.
Synology and most other NASes can connect via USB to the UPS to get the power-fail indication and do a warning and shutdown. How to get the power fail notice sent to unattended PCs on the UPS is a challenge. There is a network protocol to do so but it's not well standardized.

I have a Cyberpower 1500VA w/LCD display. Less costly than APC who is the market leader but pricy.

I suggest buying twice the UPS capacity you think you need. For growth and reality (UPS marketeers tend to overstate). My UPS is in the garage with an AC cord that comes through the wall into the adjacent room/office/den where my NAS and main PC, router, gigE switch, cordless phone, etc. are UPS powerd. The ISP's cable modem and digital phone modem are in the garage adjacent to the UPS and also powered by it.

A GFI is a "Ground Fault Interrupter" AC mains outlet. You have them in wet areas like patio, kitchen sink area, and so on. They trip and disconnect when the GFI in the outlet senses current flow (small) from AC Neutral to the ground wire/system. This happens if wires are touched, water gets into a power tool or the outlet, etc. A GFI outlet has "test" and "Reset" buttons. Building codes require them. My cheap-o builder used one GFI in the garage, then daisy-chained other non-GFI outlets in the bathrooms, patio, kitchen. So any of these chained outlets will trip the one in the garage. The builder did this daisy-chain instead of a true GFI in each place to save $20. Ha!

So don't scrimp on UPS capacity. I think my UPS was on sale for $130 or so.

 

[CaptainSTX]

One feature to look for is a way to switch off the beeping alert alarm when the AC power has failed and you are running on your UPS.

If you have a UPS in your home and the power fails at 3 AM the last thing you want is to have your wife screaming at you and giving you elbows in the ribs to get you out of bed to turn the UPS off.

I had a couple of APC units and inspite of stuffing them with cotton and foam could not get quiet enough for my wife. Replaced them with Tripp Lite units where you can toggle through a menu and switch the alarm off.

While they cost a few bucks more a happy well rested wife makes for a happy life.

 

[azazel1024]

That's why I added 'dependable' before I hit submit.

I don't think it is the dependable that is the issue, I think it is physics that is the issue.

The further away you are, the lower power its going to be.

With any kind of magnetic resonance power transmission, the efficiency is abysmal at range. Its a third power drop off (unless you can invent a magnetic monopole). So what might be 90+% efficient an inch or two away, like on a charging pad, is going to be single digit efficiencies at a foot or two.

Radio transmited power is a lot better than this, especially because you can work in very narrow beam, high gain antennas, reflectors, etc. However, power still drops off with the square of the distance. You can do MASERs to help with this to a degree, to REALLY narrowly focus it...but you still have a drop off with distance. You'd also need device tracking. Just omni beaming power is likely to never handle more than a couple of watts at most. IE you might be able to have a lowish power (5-20w) in-room power broadcasting base station that supplies powers to things like TV remotes, you Play Station controllers and maybe keeps your cell phone from discharging as quickly in use. Its not going to power a laptop or tablet, or TV.

I doubt any wireless power tech is ever going to break in to the 90% efficiency range in any kind of realistic use case, other than "charging mats" or "park your car over top of it".

Ignore "global warming" (I don't actually mean it with air quotes, but some people don't believe in science), power consumption is already a big problem. I don't think we need to add to it by making power delivery even less efficient than it already is.

What would help more, on the UPS front, is better circuits that are both significantly more efficient for pure sine wave and stepped sine wave conversion, and maybe PSU that can operate in both AC and DC bypass mode.

Other than some slight extra cost, there isn't really a good reason why power supplies couldn't work in pure DC mode. It would be significantly more efficient than AC to DC conversion and then voltage conversion. Then your UPS can just deliver straight DC current, without worrying about wave form conversion to AC, and standby/light load efficiency would SKYROCKET. On bat efficiency would also increase on the computer side of things.

Lights on, UPS does AC pass through. Power goes out, it switches over to DC and your PSU switches to DC operation. If you have a non-pass through UPS, instead of converting to DC and then back to AC, you just convert from AC to DC.

I know that isn't a terribly realistic operating mode, but I can dream.

 

[azazel1024]

Me personally, I have my core networking gear on my 550va Cyberpower UPS as well as my server on it.

Its low draw. Total draw with the server on is around 40w on the UPS, with a 12v/5.5ah battery in there. So in a "no-load" use case, I can get about 75 minutes or so of on-bat time. With the server under max load, the total goes up to around 70w, or about 45 minutes of on-bat time. Between the hours of 12:30am and 6:45am when the server is in scheduled S3...the load is about 20w, or pushing 3hrs of on-bat time. I could roughly double this by pulling the plug on my one switch and just leaving the core switch on power.

My router is in a different room on a 12v UPS providing about 16hrs of standby time with its 12v/5.5ah battery and the 4.5w power draw of the router.

At some point I'd like to get both my desktop and my TV entertainment center with my DVR on the same 550va UPS that I have for the server. Its been working well for the last year I've owned it and it was pretty cheap. I am not worried too much about data corrupting on my desktop, but it would still be nice cheap insurance. For my TV entertainment center, if the power blinks out, the DVR takes about 60-90s to reboot completely.

Where I live, I've lost power once for 40hrs. I've lost power twice for around 5 minutes. The power flickers out in bad storms (and sometimes just rather windy days) for 1-5s a 1-8 times over the course of a day/storm. Sometimes a few times in just an hour or so.

So that means, if I am, say, watching a show, the power might flicker out just long enough to power everything off...and then reboot the DVR, which generally forgets where I was if powered off abruptly and watching a recording, fast foward...only to have the power flicker off again a few minutes or half an hour later or what have you.

The inexpensive 3500/3800w generator I bought at the tail end of that 40hr power outage takes care of anything long lasting, but the power flickers are REALLY BLOODY ANNOYING. So I'd like to get that stuff on a UPS sooner rather than later (just other financial priorities).

Anything non-critical I don't care about carrying the load for more than 2-3 minutes (just a very brief power interuption). The more important things I'd like to be able to keep powered for 10-15 minutes, long enough to decide I need to go pull the generator out, plug it in, start it up and switch over the important circuits to generator power.

Or, decide the weather is too crappy and go power down everything (or in the server's case, let the UPS software power it down).

A couple of key things to right size a UPS

Get a Kill-a-watt or other pluggable power meter. You want/need to know exactly how much power your gear uses, both watts and VA. VA takes in to account power factor, watts does not. In general, you want a UPS that can handle double the watt/VA load that the UPS is rated for. With some exceptions for higher end gear, most lower end consumer UPS are often rated for only 2-5 minutes of run time at around maximum load. However, at half load, they can usually handle it for around 3 times that amount (6-15 minutes)...this is in part because of how lead acid batteries work. The lower the discharge rate/load, the greater the overall capacity of the battery to discharged state.

Also make sure you check the power load at all states. So on a NAS, check at idle and check with the drives spun up and writing data to them. On a PC, check the load at idle and check it while, say, playing a GPU intensive game.

Also unless you don't mind replacing the UPS entirely in 4-8 years, get a UPS that has a user replaceable battery. Most of the cheap ones are sealed (though you might be able to take it apart and replace the battery...maybe). A UPS, depending on just how heavy it gets used and the type, is likely to only have around a 4-8 year life span on its battery (say, roughly how long you might get out of a car battery...they are both lead acid batteries). UPS gets used a lot? Figure its going to end up getting replace very quickly, possibly just 2-3 years. Not have to revert to UPS power often? You might get 8+ years out of it. The older the battery, the lower the reserve capacity it'll have. Even in gentle use, a 4 year old UPS battery might be down to only 60-80% of its "new" reserve capacity.

 

[Rosco]

One feature to look for is a way to switch off the beeping alert alarm when the AC power has failed and you are running on your UPS.

I quite agree. I setup an older APC UPS a few years ago at my father's house, since he has a fair number of power glitches through out the year. He uses a Mac, so it had to install the APC's software on my laptop and connect it to the UPS to disable the beeping, but it kept the settings once put back on his Mac, so problem solved.

I never put much thought into the physics behind how it all works though, so azazel's posts were very interesting, thanks for the info!

I'll definitely be putting one into my setup when I get my NAS up and running.

 

[kanewolf]

The APC Smart-UPS family is targeted at small and enterprise businesses. Smart-UPS units are available used without batteries on E-Bay for reasonable prices. They are much more full featured than the UPS units targeted for home use. You CAN permanently silence the beeping! They run weekly self-tests, have the option to "calibrate" the displayed runtime -- they run on battery until 50% depleted and then calculate total runtime. The Smart-UPS products can have a network card installed and can be monitored via ethernet.

NUT is the best UPS monitor software, it is vendor agnostic. Any Linux box can host NUT and there is a Windows version although it is "Beta". NUT can broadcast shutdown messages to multiple listeners. I believe that NUT is actually the software that Synology is using on their NAS units for UPS monitoring (Do a ps and look for upsd).

 

[L&LD]

I'll definitely be putting one into my setup when I get my NAS up and running.

Before would be better.

 

[stevech]

APC is well engineered but high cost.

NUT, (freeware) as a way to broadcast on a LAN a UPS-originated power failure notice... is desirable. Problem is, for me, even though I'm a developer, NUT's documentation and possible lack of Windows support are impediments. The synology NAS (and others?) transmit some packet on the LAN upon power failure notice from a connected (by USB) UPS. It's rather proprietary, being intended to tell other same-brand NASes of the event.

I wish it were simple and standardized in terms of LAN protocol.