Do you recommend the smaller ups that hold the power you need for the nodes, or is a slightly larger one better, with larger batteries that hold longer before shutdown?
The state looking at the ups salicru one v2 in 700va 360w.
The two nodes, plus the ont, plus the two routers consume a maximum of 210w. With 100% cpu stress.
In normal use the consumption is 85w.
In my house there are no power outages. Only on very rare occasions. Not more than 3 or 4 times a year.
UPS is always recommended, it saves from overvoltage and some power blinks.
I think there are two factors to consider:
How long you want to run without power (usually measured in VA)
If you only want to give your rig time to power down, a smaller UPS is fine - and is a good way to protect your Storj databases.
Make sure your UPS can interact with your rig (OS) to send a power down signal.
If you want to run your rig during a power outage then include your router and network switches so you have Internet.
The type of UPS (things such as Line Interactive and Pure Sine Wave versus Stepped Sine Wave).
Newer more expensive computer PSUs use Active PFC (power factor correction) which is not compatible with lower cost Stepped Sine Wave UPS.
The good news is you can find low cost UPS on sites like Ebay with decent features as well as decent replacement batteries (expect 3-5 years on a decent battery if you don’t have many power issues).
A decent description of UPS types focusing on Line interactive and Online types.
https://download.schneider-electric.com/files?p_Doc_Ref=SPD_JSII-5YQSBR_EN
I have read the document.
I’m going to use the interactive type. It is low power, it is more efficient, the quality of the electrical network is good.
Make sure you check how easy it is to get replacement batteries for it. It can be really hard to find replacements for the more niche models, you don’t want to have to buy a new UPS when the battery needs replacing.
I plan to buy this model. 700va model
Is this model suitable?
The battery is 12v 7ah. The battery is common.
This looks decent - it has AVR and stepped sine wave, OK for basic computers without a premium PSU. I have two UPS units one is similar to this from my Mac mini (everyday computer, plus Internet router and Gigabit switch) and I have a more advanced unit for my Linux rig which has a PFC PSU.
I like that they advertise that they support Windows, Linux and Mac - should be easy to configure to shut down your computer gracefully if the power goes out. For some UPS units you have to cobble together some software to make it work.
With a little effort you can grab data from your UPS and send it to your favourite monitoring system. That’s my UPS dashboard displayed on my TICK instance:
Data are collected through a simple Python script which parses upsc output and sent the measurements to my TICK server. upsc is part of Network UPS Tool (NUT) package, available on many Linux distributions.
you also might not need much… lets face it, if the power is out, then often your internet will also be down in the area… atleast if its a big power outage… so really the UPS mainly is to ensure a correct shutdown…
ofc other types of hardware may make it possible for your system to crash without issue… a UPS is just even safer and more “reliable” atleast for general system stability compared to crashing…
no matter how resistant your system gets to crashing, there can always be complications, just down to bad luck…
I should get myself a UPS, but power outage here is mainly my fault… so if i am just a bit more careful and keep the circuit the server room is on isolated from everything else… then it shouldn’t loose power… else power here is rock stable… years or decades can nearly go by without power issues…
making a ups very low on my list… but with 3-4 outages pr year it sounds like you might have good use for it… but still won’t keep your internet online most likely… so really only for a clean shutdown… and with other methods you can handle a crash… i mean i think my server has crashed 30 times over the last week… i did see my netdata get weird…
netdata is monitoring software… but it may have been user error… forgot that one has to remove the url extra info to reset the website else it can stall… not the best software netdata…
but easy to install and gives tons of information
but the storagenode just went through it… not 1 failed audit or anything like that… actually it came out of it and had one of the best log days i’ve ever seen… didn’t have an error for 22 hours a couple of days ago… not a single mention of an error!!! for 22hours!!! O.o
but i digress… what i was trying to say was, you don’t need to buy a ups, expect if you really think you need it…but it sure might be a good idea, and if you don’t buy a ups you will need all the voltage filters, fuses and surge protection and what not from something else… which you will have to buy then,…
which is something i’m considering instead of a ups… but i never loose mains power… so i am generally only worried about me creating a power surge and affecting the server.
or lightning.
Everyone has a different use case.
In my area, for example, in case of external black-out in the neighborhood the Internet connection does not shut down because telecom companies have a separate backed-up power source. So having a UPS really helps.
Still talking about my case: 99% of power outage in my house are caused by my wife trying to use washing machine, boiler, oven, microwave oven, iron at the same time while my daughter is using the hairdryer. Again, in those cases, a UPS really helps.
Moreover: sometime I do some maintenance, i.e. repairing a wall outlet or mounting a ceiling chandelier, so I usually switch off the main power without worrying about my servers which are under UPS. Again, UPS is my friend.
So, I cannot live without UPS anymore. It backs up my internet router, my main wireless router, a network switch and 5-6 ARM boards, Storj included.
if one has power outages then yeah UPS is a must… just the option to shutdown the system correctly and not having to soak up the potential hardware / software / data damage of a crash every time, can save much more than the UPS setup costs long term.
i can supply You with APC BR900Gi with 12 months warranty for as cheap as 29 euro + shipping, it can get 2 x 12v - 9Ah battery, for example SSB it cost ~ 28euro and Your good. Its used, but tested for a week on 300w load. New cost around 222 euro, and here we have like very cheap compare to that. (edit no longer ugly ones avaiable only pretty ones for 49 euro)
It has aprox. sinus. and its line interactive, it works up to 540 w of load, and it can take up to 880W load for few sec. before it turns off. If You need more W for longer i got APC smar and APC BR1500 too, around 20 pcs, some of it got full sinus. if You need. Just contact me. Were in central europe, germany, poland. Will make acution on ebay for You if needed.