Hi I have a Dell PowerEdge T310 *tower* server.. I have to buy an ups by apc... anyone could help me giving an hint ? a simple "smart ups 1000" could be enough ?
thx so much!!
lewis.
On 4/14/2011 12:06 PM, admin lewis wrote:
Hi I have a Dell PowerEdge T310 *tower* server.. I have to buy an ups by apc... anyone could help me giving an hint ? a simple "smart ups 1000" could be enough ?
APC's website has a "UPS Selector" feature that will recommend a UPS based on your equipment.
2011/4/14 Bowie Bailey Bowie_Bailey@buc.com:
On 4/14/2011 12:06 PM, admin lewis wrote:
Hi I have a Dell PowerEdge T310 *tower* server.. I have to buy an ups by apc... anyone could help me giving an hint ? a simple "smart ups 1000" could be enough ?
APC's website has a "UPS Selector" feature that will recommend a UPS based on your equipment.
-- Bowie
I take a APC Smart-UPS 1000VA LCD 230V It seems good a enough to give 15-20 minutes of power to my server. very very thanks for your simple but very useful hint. lewis
On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 5:06 PM, admin lewis adminlewis@gmail.com wrote:
Hi I have a Dell PowerEdge T310 *tower* server.. I have to buy an ups by apc... anyone could help me giving an hint ? a simple "smart ups 1000" could be enough ?
It depends on how long you want it to run. Your choice is a small UPS to give your server just enough time to shut down or a big UPS to allow you to carry on working for some time.
In general a fileserver will only need a minimum of 5 to 10 minutes to shut down as your workstations are probably already dead. Obviously this has changed now that people have laptops. If you're running big processes on the server then you need long enough to let them complete or shut down gracefully.
Of course this assumes reliable power. If you regularly have outages or bad brownouts then scale up.
centos-bounces@centos.org wrote:
On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 5:06 PM, admin lewis adminlewis@gmail.com wrote:
Hi I have a Dell PowerEdge T310 *tower* server.. I have to buy an ups by apc... anyone could help me giving an hint ? a simple "smart ups 1000" could be enough ?
UPS and Power Supplies are not all the same. If the UPS has a stepped voltage output (not smooth sine wave like the local public grid has) in large enough steps to mess up the power supply, you wind up with no UPS in effect.
CLEARLY if there are enough steps to the stepped output of the UPS (which depends on the UPS brand/model), the PC power supply happily will see it as a sine wave input. How many is "enough" depends on the power supply and the load.
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On Thu, Apr 14, 2011, Brunner, Brian T. wrote:
centos-bounces@centos.org wrote:
On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 5:06 PM, admin lewis adminlewis@gmail.com wrote:
Hi I have a Dell PowerEdge T310 *tower* server.. I have to buy an ups by apc... anyone could help me giving an hint ? a simple "smart ups 1000" could be enough ?
UPS and Power Supplies are not all the same. If the UPS has a stepped voltage output (not smooth sine wave like the local public grid has) in large enough steps to mess up the power supply, you wind up with no UPS in effect.
We have been using APC UPSs for decades now, and the only major problem I've seen is batteries swelling in some of the rack-mount chassis making them difficult to impossible to remove. By difficult I mean taking the cover off the UPS to get to the batteries. By impossible, taking the cover off reveals that the construction is such that the batteries won't come out the top.
We lose power fairly frequently here, and need the UPSs to keep things going long enough to get generator backup started. I have found that the APC UPSs really don't like cheap generators. We had a week long power outage after the 2001 Clinton Inaugural windstorm, and I got an inexpensive generator from Sears which didn't work at all with APC equipment. We're now using Honda generators which are very quiet, and have kept things going for over a week at a time.
Bill
On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 6:06 PM, Bill Campbell centos@celestial.com wrote:
We lose power fairly frequently here, and need the UPSs to keep things going long enough to get generator backup started. I have found that the APC UPSs really don't like cheap generators. We had a week long power outage after the 2001 Clinton Inaugural windstorm, and I got an inexpensive generator from Sears which didn't work at all with APC equipment.
Cheap generators are just that - cheap. If you look at the output on a 'scope then you'll never want one anywhere near anything delicate. Your UPS is probably manfully trying to smooth out the spikes and if it's really clever trying to correct the frequency of the AC. All that gets soaked up by the batteries and it knackers them in no time.
For regular outages it's far better to store DC instead of doing the full AC - DC - AC - DC cycle. Shame that there isn't a good way of doing that with standard computer equipment.
On 04/14/11 9:49 AM, Brunner, Brian T. wrote:
UPS and Power Supplies are not all the same. If the UPS has a stepped voltage output (not smooth sine wave like the local public grid has) in large enough steps to mess up the power supply, you wind up with no UPS in effect.
CLEARLY if there are enough steps to the stepped output of the UPS (which depends on the UPS brand/model), the PC power supply happily will see it as a sine wave input. How many is "enough" depends on the power supply and the load.
switched PC/Server PSU's *so* don't give a bleep about sinusoidal power, its not funny. first thing they do is full wave rectify the power to DC, then they run that DC through a high frequency (several 100Khz usually) oscillator and into a toroidal transformer. they would be perfectly happy running off a full squarewave
On Thursday, April 14, 2011 02:51:02 PM John R Pierce wrote:
switched PC/Server PSU's *so* don't give a bleep about sinusoidal power, its not funny. first thing they do is full wave rectify the power to DC, then they run that DC through a high frequency (several 100Khz usually) oscillator and into a toroidal transformer. they would be perfectly happy running off a full squarewave
Actually, a squarewave with the same RMS as a sine wave will full-wave rectify and filter to a lower DC voltage than the sinewave. The supply may or may not be able to deal with that.
To work the math, 120Vac RMS yields a peak voltage for a sinewave of about 170V (Vpeak=Vrms*square-root-of-two); full-wave rectified and filtered that gives 170V DC (with some ripple, depending upon the size of the filter capacitor relative to the current drawn); a squarewave at 120Vac RMS yields a peak voltage of 120V, and a filtered DC of 120V, equal to the filtered DC for an input RMS AC voltage of 84Vac RMS (for a sinewave, Vrms=Vpeak/square-root-of-two); if your power supply can deal with that.....
Also, the odd-order harmonics may create their own havoc in the filtering. So, no, there's more to it than meets the eye.
I are a EE; degree and all..... :-)
But if you don't believe me, please look at: http://www.opamp-electronics.com/tutorials/measurements_of_ac_magnitude_2_01... and come back later....
On 4/14/2011 11:36 AM, Kevin Thorpe wrote:
I have a Dell PowerEdge T310 *tower* server.. I have to buy an ups by apc... anyone could help me giving an hint ? a simple "smart ups 1000" could be enough ?
It depends on how long you want it to run. Your choice is a small UPS to give your server just enough time to shut down or a big UPS to allow you to carry on working for some time.
In general a fileserver will only need a minimum of 5 to 10 minutes to shut down as your workstations are probably already dead. Obviously this has changed now that people have laptops. If you're running big processes on the server then you need long enough to let them complete or shut down gracefully.
Of course this assumes reliable power. If you regularly have outages or bad brownouts then scale up.
Don't forget that you need to keep your network equipment powered as well if you expect to do more than a graceful shutdown.
Partially echoing what was already said:
- Stick to APC
- Avoid the low end "workstation" models like the plain BackUPS. As a minimum get a BackUPS-Pro. SmartUPS are better.
- Use the sizing app on the APC web site
- Careful of your mains power. Besides what was mentioned for generators, accidentally chaining an APC UPS into AC provided by a server room UPS can kill the downstream UPS.
- For controlled shutdowns on battery exhaustion, check out apcupsd.
- Decide whether your UPS will power one server or a few. If you're powering a few, decide whether the control is master-slave (which you can do with a serial/USB cable to the master, then network to the slaves), or if you need the more expensive setup where the UPS talks directly to multiple servers. I think the former is fine (as long as your network switches are on the UPS), but ymmv.
Devin
On 04/14/11 10:54 AM, Devin Reade wrote:
Partially echoing what was already said:
- Stick to APC
I'd take Eaton Powerware (fka Best Power) over APC any day.
http://powerquality.eaton.com/Products-services/Backup-Power-UPS/5125.aspx or similar for this application. I'd take one of those up versus the same size APC SmartUps any day.
BTW, another thing the 'good' UPS's do, more important than 'pure sinusoidal output' for computer purposes*, is buck/boost voltage regulation.
* if you're running audio gear off a UPS, you definitely want the sinusoidal output, but thats another market entirely.
On 4/14/2011 1:55 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
On 04/14/11 10:54 AM, Devin Reade wrote:
Partially echoing what was already said:
- Stick to APC
I'd take Eaton Powerware (fka Best Power) over APC any day.
http://powerquality.eaton.com/Products-services/Backup-Power-UPS/5125.aspx or similar for this application. I'd take one of those up versus the same size APC SmartUps any day.
Keep in mind that pretty much all of them that don't have multiple battery/control modules and auto-switching (like the big APC Symmetra's) will have their own failure modes 3 or 4 years out if you just plug them in and forget them. That is, they will cause downtime even if you don't have a power failure.
Les Mikesell wrote:
On 4/14/2011 1:55 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
On 04/14/11 10:54 AM, Devin Reade wrote:
Partially echoing what was already said:
- Stick to APC
I'd take Eaton Powerware (fka Best Power) over APC any day.
http://powerquality.eaton.com/Products-services/Backup-Power-UPS/5125.aspx or similar for this application. I'd take one of those up versus the same size APC SmartUps any day.
Keep in mind that pretty much all of them that don't have multiple battery/control modules and auto-switching (like the big APC Symmetra's) will have their own failure modes 3 or 4 years out if you just plug them in and forget them. That is, they will cause downtime even if you don't have a power failure.
*shrug* You run the self-test every so often, or have apcupsd do it. In any case, when the "replace battery" light *first* goes on, order new ones, and replace 'em when they come in.
mark
On 4/14/2011 2:13 PM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Keep in mind that pretty much all of them that don't have multiple battery/control modules and auto-switching (like the big APC Symmetra's) will have their own failure modes 3 or 4 years out if you just plug them in and forget them. That is, they will cause downtime even if you don't have a power failure.
*shrug* You run the self-test every so often, or have apcupsd do it. In any case, when the "replace battery" light *first* goes on, order new ones, and replace 'em when they come in.
I think we've had many where the "replace battery" light never came on until after they had dropped power.
Les Mikesell wrote:
On 4/14/2011 2:13 PM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Keep in mind that pretty much all of them that don't have multiple battery/control modules and auto-switching (like the big APC Symmetra's) will have their own failure modes 3 or 4 years out if you just plug them in and forget them. That is, they will cause downtime even if you don't have a power failure.
*shrug* You run the self-test every so often, or have apcupsd do it. In any case, when the "replace battery" light *first* goes on, order new ones, and replace 'em when they come in.
I think we've had many where the "replace battery" light never came on until after they had dropped power.
Ok. We have mostly APC SmartUps 3000 rackmounts. They seem to work well. Btw, if you order *other* than OEM batteries, regardless of what the websites say, be *sure* that it's HR (high rate) batteries. About a year, year and a half ago, I had all kinds of grief over that.
mark
On Thursday, April 14, 2011 02:55:51 PM John R Pierce wrote:
http://powerquality.eaton.com/Products-services/Backup-Power-UPS/5125.aspx or similar for this application. I'd take one of those up versus the same size APC SmartUps any day.
We have a 5KVA Best Ferrups here that has never worked correctly.... :-) But I've seen my share of toasted APC's, too.
Currently we run older APC SmartUPS (pure sine) for the workstation stuff and Symmetras in the Data Centers. Looking to put in a Toshiba or similar 500KVA in the secondary Data Center later in the year.
BTW, another thing the 'good' UPS's do, more important than 'pure sinusoidal output' for computer purposes*, is buck/boost voltage regulation.
Yes.
- if you're running audio gear off a UPS, you definitely want the
sinusoidal output, but thats another market entirely.
Or old 3Com Corebuilder/CellPlex 7000 gear, which shuts down with anything but pure sinewave.....
Some of the newer HP servers are very picky about power from UPS's, from what I have read.
I have used several Best Ferrups UPSs over the years, other than one that toasted it's transformer, have never had any trouble out of them (just replace the battery every 3 to 4 years....).
They are picky about their input power, do not run not connect them to an auto regulating transformer (not the proper term?), or on the output of other UPSs, it can cause interesting problems....
Howard
On 4/14/2011 15:33, Lamar Owen wrote:
On Thursday, April 14, 2011 02:55:51 PM John R Pierce wrote:
http://powerquality.eaton.com/Products-services/Backup-Power-UPS/5125.aspx or similar for this application. I'd take one of those up versus the same size APC SmartUps any day.
We have a 5KVA Best Ferrups here that has never worked correctly.... :-) But I've seen my share of toasted APC's, too.
Currently we run older APC SmartUPS (pure sine) for the workstation stuff and Symmetras in the Data Centers. Looking to put in a Toshiba or similar 500KVA in the secondary Data Center later in the year.
BTW, another thing the 'good' UPS's do, more important than 'pure sinusoidal output' for computer purposes*, is buck/boost voltage regulation.
Yes.
- if you're running audio gear off a UPS, you definitely want the
sinusoidal output, but thats another market entirely.
Or old 3Com Corebuilder/CellPlex 7000 gear, which shuts down with anything but pure sinewave..... _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On 04/15/11 4:38 AM, Howard Fleming wrote:
I have used several Best Ferrups UPSs over the years, other than one that toasted it's transformer, have never had any trouble out of them (just replace the battery every 3 to 4 years....).
They are picky about their input power, do not run not connect them to an auto regulating transformer (not the proper term?), or on the output of other UPSs, it can cause interesting problems...
I don't think they make any FerrUPS anymore. Those were based on a massive ferroresonant transformer which, yes, is very sensitive to the input frequency. Specifically, they don't like generator power, unless it has extremely well regulated frequency output (such as a DC generator with a digital sinusoidal converter)
On 4/15/2011 10:48, John R Pierce wrote:
On 04/15/11 4:38 AM, Howard Fleming wrote:
I have used several Best Ferrups UPSs over the years, other than one that toasted it's transformer, have never had any trouble out of them (just replace the battery every 3 to 4 years....).
They are picky about their input power, do not run not connect them to an auto regulating transformer (not the proper term?), or on the output of other UPSs, it can cause interesting problems...
I don't think they make any FerrUPS anymore. Those were based on a massive ferroresonant transformer which, yes, is very sensitive to the input frequency. Specifically, they don't like generator power, unless it has extremely well regulated frequency output (such as a DC generator with a digital sinusoidal converter)
Eaton has the Ferrups line now (still available as far as I know).
I have actually run into the input frequency problem in the past with the Ferrups.
I was working at a gas company that for political reasons generated their own power inhouse. Had one Ferrups UPS (of 10?) that was complaining about it (kept going online/offline/online.... There is a parameter in the settings that can be adjusted to allow a greater input freq range on the UPS (59.5 - 60.5 hz is the default range, from what I remember). In this case that took care of the problem.
I have 3 1.4kw units at home, no trouble to date running them off of my backup generator (Campbell 5k unit). They are also 18 years old at this point and still going... :o). Running 3 of my CentOS servers at home in fact.
- Stick to APC
Five years ago I would have said that. Having worked with Liebert's GXT2 & GXT3units now for the last few years, I'm not so sure I'd want to go back to APC. For us the biggest bonus of Liebert was we got true online (double conversion) UPS kit at the same price point as APC's Line Interactive Smart UPS family.
On 04/14/11 9:06 AM, admin lewis wrote:
Hi I have a Dell PowerEdge T310 *tower* server.. I have to buy an ups by apc... anyone could help me giving an hint ? a simple "smart ups 1000" could be enough ?
apc smartups or eaton powerware woudl be my choices. 1000VA should be fine.
avoid consumer UPS's like apc backups, they are junk.
how long do you need the system to stay powered when the power fails? just long enough to shutdown? or do you need it to stay up for some period of time?
2011/4/14 John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com:
On 04/14/11 9:06 AM, admin lewis wrote:
Hi I have a Dell PowerEdge T310 *tower* server.. I have to buy an ups by apc... anyone could help me giving an hint ? a simple "smart ups 1000" could be enough ?
apc smartups or eaton powerware woudl be my choices. 1000VA should be fine.
avoid consumer UPS's like apc backups, they are junk.
how long do you need the system to stay powered when the power fails? just long enough to shutdown? or do you need it to stay up for some period of time?
Few minutes... 10 minutes should be enough.. and then shutdown the machine ..
-
admin lewis -
Bill Campbell -
Bowie Bailey -
Brunner, Brian T. -
Devin Reade -
Drew -
Howard Fleming -
John R Pierce -
Kevin Thorpe -
Lamar Owen -
Les Mikesell -
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