Headless Server: Worth A UPS?

[PeteCress]

My SageTV server is about to take up residence in the rec room's closet - along with Verizon's power box, a router, a switch, and a couple of HD HomeRun tuner boxes.

Question: What's the consensus of the value of a UPS in there? The assumption being that the UPS would talk to the server and initiate a graceful, totally unattended shutdown in event of power failure.

On one hand, I think "It's just television, who cares?"

On the other hand, although I've never had a Windows XP problem from pulling the plug on a PC yet; the cynic in me says that the first time the power goes out I'll have some kind of major drive/system corruption as a result of a power loss.

Is it a no-brainer either way?

Opinions?

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

Opinions?

I'd recommend one.

[stanger89]

I'd never NOT have a PC on a UPS, they're way to cheap to not have one these days.

[Apap]

A good UPS is the best insurance you can buy for any electronic equipment.

[bastafidli]

I recently added UPS mainly because the risk of file corruption in case of power failure and to avoid lenghty fcsk.

[GKusnick]

I have my entire AV rack on UPS, including STBs, receivers, amps, routers and switches, as well as my Sage server. A good UPS can extend the life of your equipment by protecting against overvoltage and brownouts in addition to actual outages. Think of it as a voltage regulator for your AC supply (which is very poorly regulated by the utility).

[DOS64K]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I have my entire AV rack on UPS, including STBs, receivers, amps, routers and switches, as well as my Sage server. A good UPS can extend the life of your equipment by protecting against overvoltage and brownouts in addition to actual outages. Think of it as a voltage regulator for your AC supply (which is very poorly regulated by the utility).

+1

[davephan]

You should at least put a cheap UPS on the computer. I put a UPS on my SageTV computer about a year ago, and I've already had about a dozen small electrical outages since then.

If you have set top boxes, they should also be plugged into the UPS.

It's a good idea to have a UPS on at least one TV. If you have severe weather that also takes out your electrical power, you can still get the weather info on TV during the electrical outage. You could get the info with a portable radio, but you wouldn't get the weather radar and TV stations cover weather events better, while radio stations are just playing music or syndicated programs.

Dave

[sandor]

i always use a UPS simply for line conditioning.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by sandor

i always use a UPS simply for line conditioning.

That would have to be one of the higher-end ones that runs the inverter all the time - instead of just cutting over in event of a power failure, right?

Or are the cutover types sensitive enough to also protect against spikes?

[jkohn]

IMHO anything with a hard drive in it should be on a UPS.

It's also a good idea for anything with a bulb in it (eg DLP HDTV).

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by jkohn

IMHO anything with a hard drive in it should be on a UPS.

It's also a good idea for anything with a bulb in it (eg DLP HDTV).

I agree with the computers. While my XP machines have tolerated sudden resets or power outages OK most of the time I've had the odd file get corrupted causing problems. Both my Sage server and my desktop have them. Small ones just big enough to allow for a controlled shutdown or to ride out a power hiccup.

I used to have one on my DLP, however there's a problem with connecting a UPS to a device that can't talk to it. Once the computer shuts down the UPS switches off. However with a TV or similar the UPS will remain on till the battery dies or you switch it off. So if the power dies while you're not home the UPS will provide standby power to the TV till the battery dies. This tends to severely shorten the life of the battery. The UPS I had on that device wouldn't hold a charge after about the second time this happened.

[jkohn]

Originally Posted by Djc208

I used to have one on my DLP, however there's a problem with connecting a UPS to a device that can't talk to it. Once the computer shuts down the UPS switches off. However with a TV or similar the UPS will remain on till the battery dies or you switch it off. So if the power dies while you're not home the UPS will provide standby power to the TV till the battery dies. This tends to severely shorten the life of the battery. The UPS I had on that device wouldn't hold a charge after about the second time this happened.

Well, my TV draws very little power when it's off, the power would have to be out for an awful long time for it to actually deplete the UPS battery. Besides, we rarely get sustained power outages here. What we do get a lot of is "blips" where the power will go out for a split second and immediately come back on. When we're having a storm or extremely windy weather it can sometimes happen several times in just a few minutes. This is extremely hard on electronics, not to mention extremely annoying if you're trying to watch TV. With pretty much everything but the amp plugged into a UPS, things keep humming right along when this happens, although we might miss a second or two of audio.

[TallMomof2]

I use a UPS on all my PCs because it protects my physical equipment. I've had brownouts that toasted the UPS but my equipment was fine. On one brownout my DH's laptop port replicator was fried (he didn't have it plugged into the UPS) and it slightly scrambled the laptop.

Prior to using UPSs I had equipment failures even though I was using a surge protector. I live in a suburb of Washington DC with underground utilities but I still have a lot of electrical problems. UPSs fix that.

[Beefcake550]

Just get a UPS that has AVR (auto voltage regulation). That will protect against brown outs and whatnot. I'd also looking into the UPS's line conditioning capabilities if it's beyond AVR. Some one them can not only adjsut voltage but also make sure you are at exactly 60Hz.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by Beefcake550

Just get a UPS that has AVR (auto voltage regulation). That will protect against brown outs and whatnot. I'd also looking into the UPS's line conditioning capabilities if it's beyond AVR. Some one them can not only adjsut voltage but also make sure you are at exactly 60Hz.

After having two sticks of memory fail as a result of power outages, I just purchased a UPS to plug my server and client into. While I know I won't be able to directly control both PC's, at least they'll be protected. I had never heard of AVR or the ability to adjust it, but I apparently bought an expensive enough UPS that it does actually have this. On my APC SUA1000, it's called AVR Boost/Trim. I'm also hoping this has a positive effect on my HD-PVRs reliability.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by Beefcake550

Just get a UPS that has AVR

Here's a straw man for my proposed requriements.
I would look for the most el-cheapo unit that meets them:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Ability to tell the PC that it's on backup power
so it can initiate immediate shutdown.

I'm not interested keeping it running. Got a generator for that, just in keeping it alive long enough for a graceful shutdown.

2) Uses non-proprietary battery/batteries that are available at the local Radio Shack store. No trying to fake out a proprietary harness... just plug-and-play.

3) Sufficient capacity to keep 600 watts going for 20 minutes.
Not four or five minutes bc the battery is going to
deteriorate over time.

Would anybody go for more than 20 minutes?

Is 600 watts a reasonable figure given that the server
has a 500-watt power supply which I assume is not running
at capacity.

Beyond the server, there's a gigabit/WiFiN router,
a 10/100, non-WiFi router, two HD HomeRun tuners,
and a gigabit switch.

4) Auto Voltage Regulation.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Beefcake550]

1) You can set it to shut down on battery power, or say "shut down when you N minutes left and can shutdown gracefully"
2) Not going to happen. Your best bet is to just get an APC and look up the battery type on the internet for a replacement. It'll last 2-3 years no problem. Battery size is not a problem....they all deteriorate over time.
3) I think I got the APC 900 something or other AmpHours or Watt hours..something. Honestly, my server with a 650W PSU, Quad core Q9450, 4G RAM, 9 hard drives only draws about 150 Watts in steady state. At least that is what the UPS tells me.
4) a must.

[Djc208]

Might be worth spending the $20 on a kill-a-watt or it's equivalent. That will tell you for certain how much current these devices are pulling, then you can size from there.

I know my UPS pulls between 110~210 watts from the wall depending on what the computer is doing. This includes the server, an external HDD, a cable modem, a wireless router, and a gigabit switch. Not all of these are on the battery backup, only the CPU, external HDD. The other three pull from the non-battery side of the UPS since I don't care if they go down when the power fails. But they also barely contribute to the total load.

I've found many of the sealed batteries used by the UPS makers are not really unique. It's just that most are not carried in a lot of places. The last time I had to get a replacement the local battery warehouse had them available or could order them. They were a standard sealed lead-acid battery size. Radio Shack actually carried the smaller one, though they wanted almost as much as I paid for the UPS for it.

[jkohn]

Every UPS I've owned, and I've owned over a dozen over the years from multiple manufacturers, have all used the same basic battery type. It's a 12v rechargeable, and I usually get them at Fry's. Some of the larger UPS's use two of them.