I recently purchased what many consider the best CyberPower UPS from Amazon, and while I’m generally satisfied with it so far, I’d like to hear honest reviews from real users before relying on it completely. If you’ve used this model, please share your experience regarding its performance, durability, key features, and whether it’s truly worth the price. Your feedback will help me understand if I made the right choice or if there’s anything important I should know before using it long-term.
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@johin I updated your URL link. Please post direct links, do not use a redirecting service. Most people, if they are smart, will not click on them. I open a sandbox when testing these kind of links.
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I’ve been using one since 2019 for my NAS. Battery replaced last year. It’s a solid unit. No complaints other than when you silence the annoying beeper, it resets to turning on again after the battery runs down during an outage which is annoying since I lose power about a dozen times a year (very rural area). So first thing I do when buying a UPS is open it up and remove the beeper speaker from the circuit board. Also have it hooked up to my NAS with a USB cable to auto shutdown when the UPS battery is getting low. Have about 10 different CyberPower UPSs and haven’t had an issue in over 10 years (other than the beeper issue).
The main thing with the cyber power unit is to ensure your NAS NUT subsystem can talk to it so the NAS will shut down once power gets low.
I’m flummoxed that the snmp Ethernet module costs more than the 1500VA UPS.
I’m pretty sure this is another of those “market segmentation” things–“the only folks who will want network communication with the UPS are corporate/datacenter users, and they can afford it.” Which was why I bought a used APC unit with the network card included last year (see UPS recommendations?), rather than a new Cyberpower–still cost less, even after new batteries for the APC.
But then, there’s a lot frustrating about the UPS market.
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I’ve been using an older but similar Cyber Power PR1500LCDRT2U UPS. It has been running perhaps 4 or 5 years for my miniature desktop, cable router, monitor, TV and Roku media player. Probably need to replace the batteries soon.
Their was a bad storm 6 months ago or so. Lots of brown outs and complete power drops, (but short duration). I continued to watch my shows on the Roku, sometimes in the dark… But, it was better than reading by flashlight.
The standard UPS manufacturers have been a bit too conservative. Few lithium options, and few consumer models with network options, (or builtin). Not sure what I am going to do when it is time to replace my miniature media server and it’s 12v lithium UPS.
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I have one, and it works. If USB connection to a single host, and its battery capacity, meet your needs, it does the job. The version of NUT that ships with TrueNAS can talk to it. I don’t think there’s much more to say about it.
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That market is relatively limited re: competitors. That oligopoly has been pretty profitable for the few that do compete. Expect things to become more competitive with time as Chinese companies start moving up from smaller UPS’ to more commercial stuff.
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Changes seem to be occurring with the portable power stations. They tend to use lithium batteries, and now at least 1 model from 1 portable power station company has USB & NUT communications. It would be nice if they made a USB to Ethernet dongle that allowed SNMP & Web GUI to that portable power station.
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ok next time no link
Links are fine, just next time use the real link, not one from a URL shortener.
ok
That is not what I said, but okay.
You folks bring up a good topic, Rechargeable Lithium Batteries in an UPS. I’d like to purchase one myself however I don’t know which one will not explode in my house. Yes, I’m a downer.
i have 3 of those sprinkled around the house and I have been happy with them. Slowly transitioning my APC branded ones to those. Batteries seem to last a while and units don’t generate a lot of heat.
for my NAS system/office i have a bigger unit, “CyberPower PR1500LCD“. Amazon link
It has an Ethernet→USB cable and my ancient FreeNAS recognizes it and after X minutes of battery run time, NAS begins shutdown.
Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) is fire-safe. Energy density isn’t as high as some other Lithium chemistries (though still much higher than lead-acid), but much safer.
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Thanks for the info. Guess I will take a look today, it being Cyber Monday.
If you find a LiFePO4 UPS without at least a four-figure price tag, I’d be both surprised and interested.
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I have had 2 lithium UPSes for years. The 12 volt one is still in service, used by my fitlit mini-PC. The other’s batteries died a few months back, and I can’t get replacement batteries for it. It was perhaps 10 years old. That one was only 450va, but more than suitable for many applications.
As far as what the battery chemistry was for either, I don’t know.
You can… build your own!
100 Ah LiFePO4 battery @ 12VDC ~ $150 ea
Inverter with built in charger and automatic 20ms transfer switch ~ $300-500
Assorted sundries to connect same, have a NUT server, etc~ $100-$200
Much better value by virtue of you being able to tailor your UPS capacity, runtime, etc. to your specific needs. But it isn’t in a industry-standard package, some assembly required, etc. So I can understand why folk would prefer a more expensive, standardized package instead.
Sure. And I’ve done something similar, though not with as nice an inverter-charger as the Victron (and mine is in the very classy enclosure of a milk crate). The problems include:
- Monitoring - You need to be able to monitor lots of parameters, including:
- Line voltage and frequency
- Output voltage and frequency
- Battery status (health, state of charge, voltage, current in/out
- Temperatures?
- Communications - having monitored this information, communicate it to one or more computers in a way that they expect to look like a UPS
usbhidis well-supported with NUT and other UPS client software, for a direct connection.- SNMP is obviously the standard for communication over a network.
That Victron unit probably does monitoring pretty well, and it has a communication port–but it probably talks RS485, not USB, and certainly not SNMP or usbhid. What would it take to do this? Hardware-wise, a US$3 ESP32 (the S2 Mini variant would be plenty). Use two of its pins to interface to the RS485 port on the Victron, its USB port to talk to a directly-attached computer, and its WiFi to get on your network for SNMP. In terms of hardware, this is dirt cheap.
But where’s the software?
ESR identified this as a problem in 2018, but this project hasn’t seen a commit since 2020:
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