UPS for network equipment

No I don't.

Modern hard drives should not fail in the event of a power failure.

I do although my NAS is not used much now as i have the Melco (which sorts itself out in the event of power loss). It was just to allow controlled shutdown of the NAS to stop it needing to do a full file system check when it came back on. It's all in another part of the house so i don't worry about issues with this and my Hi-Fi in the lounge. 

thanks guys. any more contributions/thoughts?

enjoy

ken

I have a very basic one by APC. It doesn't do anything clever like a controlled shutdown, but will power the NAS for a while if there is a blip in the power supply. 

I don't agree Bananahead,  there are numbers of case studies on HDD failure that indicate its not that simple.  It might be that a normal power failure does not damage the HDD or at least not every time, & its most likely it will not to be damaged if its on idle or hibernating,  but the possibility of power failure damage when reading or writing to disc is much higher.    The most potential damaging situation is not simple power out failures,  but power surges;  over voltage spikes such as lightening strikes are obvious,  but brown-outs are also potential dangers.   And its not only the HDD,  the NAS onboard computer is just as liable to damage especially with up & down surges.

Ken, I expect you guessed I have one - APC CS350 - isolation transformer, C&D mode filter & enough reserve battery time for all eventualities does it for me.  It powers the NAS & switch, plus broadband & phone.  I have it programmed to put NAS into its soft power down after 10 seconds to allow for those 1 or 2 second blackouts.  The switch, phone & broadband power will continue until the UPS gets to its predetermined low battery limit. I've never found out how long this is other than I've run it for 30 minutes one time.  This allows time to finish phones calls, call the power company for news/advice, finish & save any work in progress on PC.   Seems kinda sensible to have one.

Mine is only a basic APC one too - you might have the option on your NAS HH to link it to the UPS with a USB cable. The NAS can then be alerted by the UPS of a power loss and shut itself down before the UPS battery runs out of charge. 

i burn one HDD then bought a basic UPS.....

james n posted:

Mine is only a basic APC one too - you might have the option on your NAS HH to link it to the UPS with a USB cable. The NAS can then be alerted by the UPS of a power loss and shut itself down before the UPS battery runs out of charge. 

It's even more basic than that I'm afraid. Perhaps I should have spent a little more. 

I run my router, switch, nas, and wi-fi AP through my APC, so in the event of failure I can still access my core equipment and perform a controlled shutdown.

You soon uncover the vulnerabilities in your set up when faced with a power cut.

Wouldn't be without it, and have been saved in the past having learned from experience.

Absent the ability to properly shut down equipment in the event of a power failure, it's never been quite clear to me what a ups would do for me. The chances of me being around to shut down my nas manually when the power goes out are very small.  And the cost of one that'd run my nas for hours seems too high (although I've not done the math recently).

That said, I do not own a ups.  And the only thing I've ever lost after a power failure was part of my broadband power supply, which isn't even mine. The cable co. replaced that free of charge.  I guess once I lose something I'll treat it differently.  (I have enough backups that I won't lose my important data.)

My Thecus N4800 NAS has a UPS built-in and will shut down in an orderly fashion in the event of a power cut.

If you were going to go for a UPS, it might make sense to go for the online/double conversion kind that converts a/c to d/c and back to a/c permanently and thus cleans up the power supply and protects against surges, spikes, etc.

Most UPS (for example APC) are the offline kind and connect the a/c input directly to the a/c output unless there is a power cut and thus don't offer power supply clean up, etc.

Hi, I use a basic APC CS350 - and it provides backup power to my  NAS's and two small media servers as well as the network switch that connects them all. I use an SNMP server on one of NASs to provide the status of the UPS that is directly connected to that NAS to other devices on that network switch - so that SNMP can trigger the safe shutdown of equipment that has a suitable SNMP client via the network in extended power failure situations. 

It all seems to work well and has saved the day a few times....

Simon

Bananahead posted:

No I don't.

 

Modern hard drives should not fail in the event of a power failure.

I don't either, but I have a nagging feeling that I possibly should. Perhaps my confidence in modern hard drives is lower than yours. 

I use a simple  APC 350 UPS which runs my NAS drive and Unity Serve. If I remember correctly this will run for about 20 minutes and this gives enough time to power down correctly

I live in a village fed with overhead electrics and power outages are not unusual but normally only last a few seconds but this is enough to cause trouble, since having fitted this I have had no problems, it can also be useful when RCD trips out  when using lawn mowers etc!

I'm fairly new to this forum so I hope everything is OK 

Hungryhalibut posted:

james n posted:

Mine is only a basic APC one too - you might have the option on your NAS HH to link it to the UPS with a USB cable. The NAS can then be alerted by the UPS of a power loss and shut itself down before the UPS battery runs out of charge. 

It's even more basic than that I'm afraid. Perhaps I should have spent a little more. 

Which model HH?

Mike-B posted:

.....

Ken, I expect you guessed I have one - APC CS350 - isolation transformer, C&D mode filter & enough reserve battery time for all eventualities does it for me.  It powers the NAS & switch, plus broadband & phone.  I have it programmed to put NAS into its soft power down after 10 seconds to allow for those 1 or 2 second blackouts.  The switch, phone & broadband power will continue until the UPS gets to its predetermined low battery limit. I've never found out how long this is other than I've run it for 30 minutes one time.  This allows time to finish phones calls, call the power company for news/advice, finish & save any work in progress on PC.   Seems kinda sensible to have one.

thanks Mike. i was trying to determine whether the balance of risks lies in terms of using one or not. i also noticed that my recent upgraded Virginmedia hum doesnt seem to like to be 'close' to the UPS -- but i havent tested this thoroughly so dont run with it yet.

when you mention 'isolation xformer, mode filter -- etc, are these things that you added or did they come with the unit? i am ashamed to say i havent checked mine to see what other functionality it has in addition to backup power. 

enjoy

ken

Bananahead posted:

No I don't.

 

Modern hard drives should not fail in the event of a power failure.

i had a 'brownout' recently and the UPS came up trumps (ooops, sorry!) It beeped to indicate mains power off and UPS power on -- and the LAN equipment were unaffected -- continued as normal.

but, what is the nature of damage from 'brownouts' in particular -- especially on NAS and UnitiServe? Lighting is another matter -- i think...

enjoy

ken

ken c posted: 

when you mention 'isolation xformer, mode filter -- etc, are these things that you added or did they come with the unit? i am ashamed to say i havent checked mine to see what other functionality it has in addition to backup power. 

Hi again Ken,   the items all come with the standard unit design.   APC tend to not say what's inside or how it works, but instead tell us what it does & sometimes its all lost in the marketing blurb,  I guess thats better than techno-babble for the average punter.    I got hold of a set of APC circuit schematics & can see how the various features & functions work.   

I'm not convinced a power cut will damage a hard drive. After all, most are designed to be hot swapped (powers cut to the drive when it's removed from an active PC).

I've switched off power to my sockets numerous times, without remembering to switch off the NAS beforehand and never had a problem.

I do have UPS but use it to power my turntable.

Hi FatCat,  maybe you have got away with it.  I've never done hot swapping,  but isn't it a slightly more managed process than a power failure.   I believe the big risk is with a power loss when the HDD is running read/write.       

Ken - if you recall a pic of my 'engine room' you will notice I use a rack-mount UPS. It's designed to offer up to 20 minutes of uniterupted power supply to all my networked components. 
The following are plugged into it: UnitiServe SSD, QNAP NAS, ISP modem, CISCO network switch, Apple Time Capsule.

I suffer approximately two power outages per year - it's an old part of town, with old power cables. Need to have enough time to shut down both servers.

Adam

DuncanM posted:

I use a simple  APC 350 UPS which runs my NAS drive and Unity Serve. If I remember correctly this will run for about 20 minutes and this gives enough time to power down correctly

I live in a village fed with overhead electrics and power outages are not unusual but normally only last a few seconds but this is enough to cause trouble, since having fitted this I have had no problems, it can also be useful when RCD trips out  when using lawn mowers etc!

I'm fairly new to this forum so I hope everything is OK 

Hi Duncanm, yes I am in similar circumstance, although since the overhead wiring in my village was recently renewed (from 4 discrete wires, to a new single 3 phase and neutral bundle) things have definitely improved regarding nuisance trips and power cuts.

i found the biggest risk when power tripped and came back on was damage to the switch mode power supplies of NAS and computer equipment which I suspect were very stressed with the power interruption surges.. The UPS fixed that..

BTW I am not sure if your situation is the same as me, but I had my house supply changed from PME to TT (True Earth) by an electrician. This reduced nuisance tripping hugely and improved my audio SQ as well!!!

I wonder about the general population.

How many people have something like a Sky box? How many have them plugged into a UPS?

How many people have a computer? How many have them plugged into a UPS?

Re computer ..........  my wife had a laptop that "dropped" its battery (a finger pushed the battery tab catch open) while she was carrying it to kitchen - (carrying an open lid & running laptop is another NO-NO) - that corrupted the HDD,  its was not totalled,  more like walking wounded & was pronounced terminally sick by a professional service cmpy.   Regular back ups saved the day & she now has a new one & with a SSD,  but same rules apply in my book.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

DuncanM posted:

I use a simple  APC 350 UPS which runs my NAS drive and Unity Serve. If I remember correctly this will run for about 20 minutes and this gives enough time to power down correctly

I live in a village fed with overhead electrics and power outages are not unusual but normally only last a few seconds but this is enough to cause trouble, since having fitted this I have had no problems, it can also be useful when RCD trips out  when using lawn mowers etc!

I'm fairly new to this forum so I hope everything is OK 

Hi Duncanm, yes I am in similar circumstance, although since the overhead wiring in my village was recently renewed (from 4 discrete wires, to a new single 3 phase and neutral bundle) things have definitely improved regarding nuisance trips and power cuts.

i found the biggest risk when power tripped and came back on was damage to the switch mode power supplies of NAS and computer equipment which I suspect were very stressed with the power interruption surges.. The UPS fixed that..

BTW I am not sure if your situation is the same as me, but I had my house supply changed from PME to TT (True Earth) by an electrician. This reduced nuisance tripping hugely and improved my audio SQ as well!!!

Hi Simon

You say you had your supply changed from PME to TT (true earth), is this where you have your own earth stake rather than using the incoming earth from the Electricity supplier?

When we have power cuts and the power comes back on it seems to come back on gradually and lights etc surge on and off for a few seconds, not to mention Naim black boxes popping back in to life, I'm sure this must play havoc with hard drives etc, wouldn't be without my UPS, however the Sky box so far has survived intact

Does any one know if the Unity Serve can be remotely powered down by the UPS?