[Nut-upsuser] choosing a UPS (in the United States)

[Charles Lepple]

On 8/8/06, Eric S. Johansson <esj at harvee.org> wrote:
> I do a bunch of "kindness of strangers" hosting in my basement and my
> three kVA apc unit died recently.  In looking around, it looked like
> Belkin was a reasonable low-end replacement

IMHO, "low-end" means something to filter power blips less than 10
seconds long. That's what I would use for a desktop machine, but not
any sort of hosting (even if it's not mission-critical).

> So the question is what's a good UPS for running for five machines, 12
> disk drives, and seven CPUs (one being a DEC Alpha)?  No, I haven't
> figured out the power budget.  When I take things down this weekend, I
> will be measuring the power consumption of all the devices.

I don't know your physical setup, but if it were me, I would get a few
rack-mount UPSes instead of putting everything on one big UPS.

Obviously, you don't want to go too crazy on splitting things up,
because the per-unit cost for replacement batteries is generally
higher than half the cost of a battery twice as large.

This also usually gives you more control over switchable outlets, in
case you want to remotely power-cycle one particular server.

> assuming that the Belkin units are uncontrollable because the firmware
> and hardware implementation is just awful, what is recommended and
> available here in the states?

Tripp Lite is in a similar category. Their rackmount stuff looks
decent, but I still haven't had a chance to do full testing with the
2U box that tripplite_usb works with. Their protocol is a bit of a
mess, and if you happen to get something that is slightly newer than
what NUT supports, there will be very little indication on the box as
to what has changed.

If you can't find an MGE unit that suits your needs and/or wallet, I
would recommend either a used Best Power UPS, or an APC. Since you've
checked the list, you have probably seen that Arnaud and his coworkers
at MGE have been very responsive to any issues that crop up. On the
other hand, APC implements most of the same features as MGE, and their
proprietary stuff isn't quite as opaque as some of the other vendors'
hidden features. Some of the APC fixes are very recent, though, and
have not been tested as much.

Froogle lists several MGE distributors in the US, so it's worth another look.

-- 
- Charles Lepple