Re: [gentoo-user] UPS recommendation

[Arthur Britto]

On Sun, 2008-05-11 at 10:15 -0700, maxim wexler wrote:
> I did a search for UPS units and was overwhelmed by the diversity out there.
>
> What can the group recommend?
>
> I only need something that will give me about a minute's head start to safely turn of the box.

You likely want more than a minute.   Most likely, you don't want your
system to crash when coming back up when power fails soon after it is
restored: your system could be in the middle of a fsck.  Generally, you
want enough capacity to: power off, power on, and then power off safely.

I am very happy with the CyberPower Intelligent LCD Series: CP*AVRLCD
http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/

The series has:

NUT support:
You want something that works with NUT.  Instead of a vendor specific
package.  This way your acquired skills are portable and future proofed.
  Network UPS Tools
  http://eu1.networkupstools.org
NUT is great.  It safely powers off my system when the UPS is low.
Additionally, I set it up to e-mail my cell phone when the power state
changes.  If I go out during a power outage, I can stay out longer if I
know the power is not restored.

USB interface:
* A USB port is more future proof: serial ports are becoming rare.  
* Allows monitoring UPS state.
* Allows powering off the UPS.

LCD Display:
At a touch know:
* power consumption (don't need to pull out a Kill-O-Watt)
* battery charge
* estimated minutes remaining

One thing to be wary of is like most inexpensive UPSes it does not
provide a pure sine wave.  This can damage a power supply that has
active power factor correction.  Luckily for my Silencer 750 Quad
according to the manufacturer due to the short time in which the UPS is
in use it is not an issue.

-Arthur


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