# Recommendations for a UPS

## civilian

I'm looking for a low price UPS that will be able to power a 360 watt pc for about 5 to 10 minutes.

Off course it needs to be Gentoo compatible and should only send a shutdown signal if the power doesn't come back on within a few minutes.

Any recommendations?

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## skwang

I can recommend an UPS daemon: sys-power/apcupsd.  You can go to their Web site and get a list of compatible UPSes.  Given that you want the software capability of being able to shutdown, you may want to start with the daemon and work your way backwards, instead of buying an UPS, and discovering that you can't control it.

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## snIP3r

hi!

i also recommend apcupsd together with an apc ups, e.g. APC Back-UPS BK500EI. i think this model has the price you expect.

HTH

snIP3r

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## Akkara

 *civilian wrote:*   

> I'm looking for a low price UPS that will be able to power a 360 watt pc for about 5 to 10 minutes. [...] Any recommendations?

 

Yes.  My recommendation is to get a UPS that can power your PC for no less than a minimum of 30 minutes.

I know, you don't need it powered that long.

But the way current battery chemistry works, discharging a battery in 5-10 minutes is *very* hard on the cells and the unit will not last long.  Been there many times, there really is no other way than to purchase a minimum of 30 minutes capacity, even if you need less.  It will cost more than you might like.  But it will save you money in the end because you won't be replacing the unit every year or two.

If interested in more details, take a look at my post on a similar thread.

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## drescherjm

I have used POWERCOMM UPS KING PRO 800VA to 1500VA models with good success for > 5 years at home and at work. I generally pick these up for around $130USA.  At home PCM -1000VA powers my 2.83GHz core2 quad with 6 hard drives for about 1 hour.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842106115

Although I recently upgraded at home to a refurbished APC Smart UPS XL 1400VA model with 2 x 12V 18AH batteries (instead of 12V 7AH that most other UPSs use) for around $180US shipped on eBay. It weighs almost 55lb. I have not tested the run time yet but I am pretty sure I should get at minimum 2 hours of run time out of that.

This is a similar model to the APC one I got at home, however refurbished it was $180 instead of almost $800..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842101167

BTW, I did not mention I am not using monitoring software on the PCM units in linux. The home machine I lost the serial cable. And at work the dozen or so of these are on windows machines. On the gentoo servers we have APC and Cyberpower units.

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## civilian

 *Akkara wrote:*   

> discharging a battery in 5-10 minutes is *very* hard on the cells

 

Good to know. If I don't buy quality I'll end up buying quantity.

 *drescherjm wrote:*   

> I generally pick these up for around $130USA.

 

As I have feared: UPSs are a bit above a student budget, but I suppose that such a price is reasonable for a non-student.

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## poly_poly-man

I had an APC backups-350... didn't work out so well (battery is completely dead at this point...

Now I have a backups-RS-1500 - very nice. Can recommend this. Will set you back $200.

as akkara said, you want more than you think you want.

also, APC or nothing.

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## drescherjm

 *Quote:*   

> I had an APC backups-350... 

 

We have some of these at work. I find them only good for a network switch or something that uses less than 100W. 

 *Quote:*   

> didn't work out so well (battery is completely dead at this point...

 

For any UPS you will have to replace the batteries every 3 to 5 years. The good thing is most manufacturers use the same batteries. In fact the 12V 7AH batteries that APC uses in the backups-350 are the same batteries in the Powercomm units except instead of 1 battery there are 2. I replace the 7AH models with Tempest 12V 9AH models for around $17.50 US each and I usually buy 6 to 12 at a time at work because when 1 goes bad its usually a sign that others are on the way out.

http://www.batteryspec.com/cgi-bin/cart.cgi?action=link&product=33

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## drescherjm

 *Quote:*   

> As I have feared: UPSs are a bit above a student budget, but I suppose that such a price is reasonable for a non-student.

 

Any thing less than this in price will only be good for a momentary voltage fluctuation for any machine that draws more than 100W.

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## Kabraxis

-> Buy only APC UPS. <-

I have: UPS MUSTEK 1400VA RS232 USB (840V).

I bouht this UPS on the internet (much cheap then in normal shop) and it is the best choice in this price.

How UPS look (page in my language): http://allegro.pl/item607006466_ups_mustek_1400va_rs232_usb_listwa_apc_okazja.html

The pirce in other currency: 116 Euros

The pirce in other currency: 158 Dollars

If you want buy UPS, buy better (more expensive) and be happy with it.

On CD is Linux software. I didnt try this software because i am using this UPS with Windows Vista.

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## drescherjm

 *Quote:*   

> -> Buy only APC UPS. <-

 

I do not subscribe to that. At work I have over 30 UPSs. All of the ones I purchased are over 700VA. Most connect to only a single PC. Around 15 of them are powercomm, most are 800VA. Then I have around 10 APC units. I did buy 4 1000VA units but the rest are ones we claimed from a different department. Those are APC BackupRPS 350s. I just use these for intermittent power outages on test machines because although they use the same batteries as most of the others the batteries wear out a lot sooner than units with 2 or more of the same batteries as a result the APC BackupRPS 350s are way less reliable than any of the other units I have.  The 1000 VA (forgot the name) APC units do have better battery management than the powercomm units but also the APC units tend to want the batteries changed earlier than the other manufacturers. When APC says a battery is dead I sometimes rotate that into a powercomm unit and that will get 6 months to a year of extra usage. There is one feature that I like on the APC units versus the powercomm, that is the ability to disable the beep. The speaker on the powercomm is very loud and the only way to stop it permanently is unsolder it from the board while the APC units have software that can turn this off. The main reason for choosing Powercomm over APC for the last few purchases was price. I paid about 2.5 times the price for the APC 1000 versus the powercomm 800VA and 1000VA models. After 3 years with powercomm and 8 years with APC all of the UPSs I purchased are still working.

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