Re: SmartUPS (Re: Software RAID and drive failures)
Joao Pedro Clemente said:
> Hi. Sorry for bugging in, but I got curious:
> These SmartUPS really do "wave-correction"? I've heard, from other brand
> vendors (some Italian brand) that APC didn't had ANY such UPS, that they
> only worked in a garanteed sine-wave with correct voltage when operating
> in battery mode (no ac available)
Well they have this thing called "Smart Boost" which drips feed from
the battery when there is a power drop off. it also regulates when
there is a surge. The sensitivity can be adjusted via software or a
switch on the unit depending on the model. I have some equipment that
is sensitive to UPS quality, especially 110/220V auto switching
power supplies absolutely FREAK OUT if the UPS is of lesser quality.
Not sure if sine wave has much to do with it or not though PC Power
& Cooling said it did at least for their power supplies.
on the most technical level it may not, perhaps only their high end
symmetras provide perfect sinewave ..not sure.
lower quality UPS units usually flip totally to battery when theres
a surge or brownout.
>
> I have a BackUPS and what happens to me is that it workes in two states:
> a) - If Voltage > Thresold (user-definable at 192v, 184v, 176v or 168v),
> workes with AC power directly (well, maybe it has a peek filter).
>
> b) - If Voltage < Thresold, works in battery mode - outputs the
> wanted "almost-sine" 220v
yeah that's not quite as advanced as the smartUPS models.. for low cost
UPSs I use cyberpower, I especially like this model:
http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/1500avr.htm
Roughly equivilient to my Smart UPS 1000RM 2U, but half the price($250).
Not sure if it's available in europe though! Doesn't look like the
cyberpower is true sine wave it says +/- 5% on voltage output.
> 1 - I don't have a stable power cause it does not garantees the correct
> output unless in battery mode
> 2 - I had to set thresold to 184 to prevent it from beeing always on
> battery [what would shut down my systems after 15 min], and thus I have to
> bear with voltages variation between 230v-184v...
a smartUPS or a cyberpower AVR or equivilent should work better then
a BackUPS ..I also use a lot of Cyberpower's 900AVRs. I think I may
have half a dozen things plugged in(besides kitched appliances) that
are not protected by a UPS :) everything from computers, phones, tvs,
alarm clocks, monitors, stereos, vcr etc all protected by UPSs.
> That Italian brand (now I remeber, it was "ally", I think) said they
> (ally) were the only ones to do a "dual-power-conversion":
> During normal usage (no battery mode) their UPS would pickup AC power
> (that could be from 160 something volts to 200 and someting volts),
> convert to DC, and then back to a perfect AC output with the wanted
> voltage/frequency..
sounds like "AVR"(Automatic Voltage Regulation). SmartUPS and others
do this too(If I'm readin your statement right)
> In short: What do those SmartUPS do better than a BackUPS?
provides much cleaner power is the main benefit. e.g. before I had
the SmartUPS I had my 48-port switch hooked to a lower quality
cyber power 1100VA UPS. About the same quality of power as a BackUPS
I think.. whenever there was a power glitch, the UPS would switch
to battery, the voltage would spike, and that would convince the
110/220V power supply to switch from 110 to 220! This would trip
the breaker in the switch and shut the switch down until I could
come home and reset it by pulling the fuse & power cord and re
seating both. One time my stereo blew a fuse on the same UPS, fried
the UPS in the process(smelled smoke). No other noticable damage
though. Same thing on my PC Power & Cooling auto switching power
supplies, they'd switch to 220V when a lower quality UPS(even my
Cyberpower 900AVR) switched to battery, tripping the internal
breaker.
the second benefit is management, you can get all kindsa addon
cards(SNMP/enviornmental etc) to manage the UPS(I have an enviornmental
card in mine).
also not sure but the batteries in smartUPSs are hot swappable, this
feature isn't usually of the most importance though.
another feature, at least on the XL models is external battery packs.
my biggest UPS at my last employer was a SmartUPS 2200XLNET + 2 rackmount
battery packs(total of 10 batteries weighing more then 350 pounds).
Lasted about 3 hours at 60% load on batteries(had a 3 hour outage once!)
nate
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