Help with selecting UPS for small NAS setup

TrueNAS General
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Hello! I have come to the conclusion that it’s time to invest in a UPS for my small NAS. Since I have no experience in this subject I would greatly appreciate some help with selecting an appropriate model.

The NAS and a few peripherals incuding a managed switch only draws around 60W give or take. My primary goal is safe shutdown during power outages but I live in the city and the power outages are rare and usually only lasts for about an hour or two and if I could continue streaming content from my media server on the NAS without interruptions during that time it would be a great bonus (power consumption including my TV is around 100W).

I am currently looking at

The Eaton is obviously the higher end option and is rather expensive and maybe overkill for my use case? But if it will outlive the other two by a lot and generally be a better experience in terms of things like NUT support, noise level, general build quality and longer lifetime etc I might consider it anyway.

From what I can tell, APC is a reputable brand but maybe not for the consumer grade products? I saw a youtube video of someone disassembling a similar model and finding a very cheap transformer with aluminum windings and poor solder joints, which seems scary. I don’t want to be worried the thing’s going to catch fire when unattended.

With PowerWalker I can get a lot more runtime than the other two. But I’ve read reviews describing annoying sounds from the transformer and the battery dying after a while without any indication so when the power goes out so does the equipment. On the other hand, other people seem to be happy with this option.

So I guess I’m asking those with more experience: should I spend my money on a more reputable brand or will I be just fine with a cheaper model and better off spending my money on more runtime instead?

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This seem to be the best balance between usability (APC seem to work pretty well with NUT) and price.

But ultimately it depends on what you want… if you want your NAS to shutdown gracefully when the UPS battery goes low, and want the least trouble possible, I would go for the APC.

Not saying the PowerWalker are bad products, but I haven’t seem them much on these forums so I don’t khow they fare with the NUT.

IIRC, @dan owns a few APC units.

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Two, but they’re more commercial units–rack-mount with network monitoring cards. And they do work fine with NUT, using its ups-snmp driver, but I can’t really speak to how well they work with local (serial/USB) connections.

So that 100W includes your NAS, TV, and all the other supporting hardware? That’s lower than I’d expect; my NAS, router, network switch, and WiFI access point draw about 150W, and that’s without a TV. But using your number, 100W, and a duration of up to 2 hours, that means you’d need a UPS that can provide 200 watt-hours. Unfortunately, most UPS manufacturers don’t provide that spec, or at least make it easy to find; they’d instead prefer to advertise a meaningless maximum power output.

Sometimes, though, they provide enough information that you can work it out, and it looks like PowerWalker does. Looking at the 3000 unit you link, that page tells you that the battery pack contains two 12V, 9Ah batteries[1]. Using nominal voltage to make the math easier, that’s 2 x 12 x 9 = 216 watt-hours of battery[2]. The spec page you link further indicates an efficiency of 60% when on battery, which would mean a real output of 216 Wh x 60% = 130 Wh. It’d be enough to run the NAS and network for the two hours you mention, but not the TV as well.

The PowerWalker 2200 unit has the same number of the same[3] batteries–it should provide the same runtime. Both of them say they support HID interface, which would suggest they should work with NUT, but I don’t have any experience with them.

The Eaton unit likewises uses 12V, 9Ah batteries, but it has three of them. Assuming its efficiency on battery is the same as the PowerWalkers (they don’t provide that spec that I can see), it should provide 50% greater runtime for the same load on battery. It also has[4] sine-wave output rather than the PW’s simulated sine wave, which is likely an improvement.

The APC unit is again a simulated sine-wave output, but has less battery capacity than the PW units–all are 24V, but the APC is 7Ah vs. the PW’s 9Ah. That’s going to translate to about 25% less runtime.

You’d mentioned noise as a concern; in my experience UPSs are silent, or very nearly so, unless they’re on battery power.

As to safety of construction–I don’t tend to worry about it. I figure they’re built, third-party tested, and certified to a safety standard, and I’m willing to leave it there. May not be the best way to go, but that’s as far as I’ve pursued that question in my mind.

  1. By comparison, my APC SMT1500RM2U uses four of that same battery–showing that maximum power ratings don’t translate very well to watt-hour capacity ↩︎

  2. This ignores the fact that at higher load, you don’t get the full rated amp-hour capacity ↩︎

  3. same capacity, maybe not same form factor ↩︎

  4. or claims ↩︎

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Wow, thanks for quick and elaborate replies!

Looking at the NUTS compatibility list it actually seems like APC and PW have a similar support for NUTS, the same driver even (usbhid-ups). But I don’t know if that means they expose the same features and data.

oh, I forgot about the router (which is also my accesspoint). It’s in one of those electrical cabinets for the apartment atm. But I would think that shouldn’t add too much, but I’ve never actually measured it. I do have my TV, NAS, nvidia shield (used as a chrome cast / apple TV) and 5-port switch connected to the same smart plug though, that sends power consumption to my home assistant instance. It’s usually idling at 55-60W and then goes to 90-100W when I’m watching something. Not sure how accurate it is but I guess it’s in the ballpark at least.

That’s is a very good point! Thanks for pointing out that a higher output power doesn’t mean being able to run for longer. I guess it’s just the inverter that is able to deliver more power? And my current needs are nowhere near even half of the max output power for any of these devices.

I also found some used APC smart-ups SMT1000 series for around $260 but without batteries, which I think I can get for cheap. Maybe that is a good options as well. A bit more expensive than the VI 2200 SHL but maybe more trustworthy in the long run?

Yes, that makes sense. More likely is that a cheaper device isn’t built to last as long. But maybe I should just buy one and see for myself, and gain some knowledge :smile:

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Yep. And the power limit is rarely a real issue.

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Looks like I found a used APC back-ups pro 1500 in very good condition for $250. It feels like a very good choice. But it has a minimum power draw of 87W, what exactly does that mean? Will it not work if the current draw is less? Or will it still draw that much and dissipate the rest somehow?

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Eventually ended up with an Eaton 5SC1000i that just arrived. Will tinker with the setup over the weekend, but cheezus is this fan loud. Hoping this is temporary at startup or can be fixed in software somehow. Otherwise I have to get rid of it and find something else. It’s like sitting next to a hair dryer! Not something I’d like to have next to my TV.

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Doubt about it.

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That’s surprising to me; there really shouldn’t be anything generating significant heat unless the unit’s on battery.

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According to Eaton’s site the noise level of that UPS is expected to be <40 dB at 1 meter.
In comparison my 5S1500i is barely audible at <25 dB at 1 meter, unless on battery of course.

While that is a quite a difference, it really shouldn’t be perceived as being loud as a hair dryer (typically 80-90 dB at 1 meter).

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Yes, me too. Turns out the fan is not PWM so it’s either on or off, in this case it seems like it is just always on.

I read of others having the same issue on Eaton 5 series and installed Noctua fans with good results. I opened mine up and it saw that it should be very easy to replace the stock fan. The stock fan has 23.5 cfm which is ~40 m3/h while the Noctua replacement gives 29 m3/h, but since the power I will draw from it is at most ~15% of max it should be fine. My guess is that I could even use one of the low noise adapters if I need to. So, I ordered a Noctua NF-A6x25 FLX that will arrive tomorrow so I’ll mount it then and report back for anyone interested.

I measured ~50db at 1 meter, using an app on my phone so not sure how accurate it is. So, maybe I was exaggerating a bit :slight_smile: but it was definitely not bearable to be in the same room as this unit for extended periods of time. So I hope that the fan replacement will do the trick.

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Installed the Noctua fan today, and it turned out great. The connector on the PCB was not a regular fan connector so I had to get some 3M Scotchloks to splice the cables. Then tried with and without the fan connected to make sure the alarm was working but not going off when the new fan was connected. I ended up going with the ultra low noise adapter so the noise is not even noticable. And after running a few hours on my regular load the air coming from the fan is nice and cool.