[AusNOG] Who makes good UPS gear besides APC?

[Ross Wheeler]

On Thu, 19 Mar 2015, Tim Sheahan wrote:

> I'm looking for some insight as to who's making good UPS gear besides APC 
> these days. I've checked the Sepember thread and still have some questions.

That's a very open-ended question!


> We've been buying APC for a long time and had an extremely disappointing run.

Yes, once upon a time they had a good product and earned their name. I 
think at some point they took their eye off the ball and relied on their 
reputation...


> This makes us want to look further afield, and the question in mind is - what 
> else is good - who's had good experiences with longevity?

My office situation is unusual - I live (and work) totally, entirely 
off-grid. I lasted 3680 days without a glitch or interruption... then my 
inverter (ups) died at 4:20am one morning, with no discernable cause.

The manufacturer ceased to exist some years before.

I've since replaced it with another unit (SP-PRO 481) which is in many 
regards superior to the old unit. It is easy enough to stack these such 
that an individual device failing doesn't result in loss of all output, 
but then even APC do an N+1 redundant system which would probably do the 
same.


> I've heard it said a UPS is not forever, and that's fine, however - should we 
> really have to put up with high rates of all-out failure rather than degraded 
> battery performance?

Lead-acid batteries REALLY hate getting hot, particularly chronic 
overheating. Most APCs I've encountered (low-end stuff up to 5KVA) burn 
batteries like nobodies business.
VRLA batteries also hate being overcharged (or floated on too high a 
voltage), and every APC I've seen does this too.


> I'm looking for units in the 1.3kw to 2kw class, rack mount and desktop.

I never bothered with anything so small, and I suggest you look at 
something a little larger anyway. They're probably the same physical size, 
but running them more lightly loaded seems easier on them, and gives you 
longer backup into the bargain. (More time to have the genset fail, 
possibly even time to make some alternate arrangement!)

R.