To start, this isn’t about the delivery company, but rather uninterrupted power supplies.
For years I’ve had one for my NAS. It’s simply there in case of mains interruption, and isn’t configured to do a managed shutdown, which is something I’ve never managed to work out.
I’d like to declutter the bits and bobs that live in the dining room and was thinking of ditching the UPS. It’s pretty old and probably needs new batteries anyway.
When I first got my NAS, having a UPS was very much the thing, but these days nobody seems to mention them.
Do others still use a UPS? Will harm come to my NAS if there is a power cut and I’m not using one?
I’m still using mine (Furman 1000), it sits on a small table tucked in the corner with other network equipment adjacent to my listening room. If you’re using a traditional NAS with spinning drives I’d be reluctant to ditch it. I get a handful of power outages/interruptions every year, most are brief, some are just a blink. When I consider the outages the UPS has protected my QNAP from over the years I figure it’s saved my drives from potential failure. If outages/interruptions are rare where you live perhaps you don’t need it.
Do you not have a battery for your PV? If so, you may want to investigate having a socket connected to it which will work in the event of a power cut. Haven’t tried it myself yet, but a friend has this arrangement and uses it to power his router in the event of a power cut, which seems to work well.
Had my NAS, a synology 218 from 2018. Never fitted a UPS, never really given it any thought either. Yes, had power cuts, but i cant see any negative impact on the 2 off 6Tb drives. They show no lost sectors. Traditionally when a HD loses power, the disks go to their park position on the run down.
Yep, the APC UPS. Battery protected outlets for the NUC, router and server. And a lot of other things on surge protected outlets. I can also track the consumption with the APC software.
I’m wondering if it ever makes sense to use UPS for the audio equipment?
I’ve had a UPS since I first went streaming in 2014.
I think of it as a power cut security item, but TBH it’s probably never been needed as the very few power cuts, and the NAS has always been off (not reading/writing) at those times.
I do find it very useful for powering the router to continue working and shutting it down in my own time. And the internal 1:1 transformer and C&D mode chokes all help with my SMPS switching noise suppression plan.
It’s coming up time for a second new battery, but as I can get an exact brand and size replacement for only £20 from www, I guess it’s a keeper
Naim servers are a bit different in that they all contain a CD reader, an SPDIF output, powered USB ports, and in some cases a beefy linear power supply, DAC etc. so I think you’d need something more than a UPS suitable for a basic NAS.
Personally I wouldn’t bother, having used a Synology and a Unitiserve for quite a few years. Neither have ever been harmed by a power cut - except for one caused by a lightning strike!!
Have a APC SmartUPS 750 on my collection of NAS units.
Good for a controlled power down of the 3 RAID0 volumes, which don’t like the power being yanked from them, and then 20 minutes of Internet, WiFi provision, IOT support for the heating, security cameras, lights etc.
Good if you do something to throw a RCB, during a 555DR power up, power supplies & amplifiers in the wrong sequence!
Seem to have replace the batteries every few years in this unit.
But the surge protection and some noise filtering from the UPS unit is good.
The inverters are inoperative during normal mains power, they only become activated during power outage.
But who says they pollute anyway, OK the waveform is not perfect, but who cares, when they operate as a UPS, the mains power has gone down and there is no audio system. The UPS just keeping the NAS running long enough to enable it to execute a controlled shutdown.
Statistically, unless you live somewhere prone to power outages or brownouts, a power supply will fail more frequently than the mains will go out. So they may be surplus to requirement. In the past decade, I’ve had zero unplanned power cuts and 5 failed power supplies (3 wall warts and 2 ATX).
And as they only cover limited components, you are not really “up and running” during a power outage if the only thing up is the NAS. Eventually the juice on a UPS will run out so without the graceful shutdown configured, you’ve gained nothing.
This is why in data centres, redundant power supplies in servers are priority one and UPS are priority 2 in many cases. The exception being for call routing systems.
If you just want to bridge small outages of less than an hour, modern NASes run off USB power and a 30w USB-C power pack is about the size of paperback book. That probably covers most domestic scenarios for less than £80. It’s the same as running a laptop in effect. Power goes out, battery takes over.
I have 2 UPS, one on the NASs (I have 2, one for backup) and one for the network (router, switches and WAPs). They are going nowhere. From what others have said here I think my electricity supply may be less reliable than average. We get a few interruptions each year, but last bank holiday set the record of 9 power interruptions in one day as reported by the UPS/NAS. It may be a coincidence but since installing the UPS I have had no PSU failures which had previously been a regular activity.
The biggest pain is getting all the audio boxes physically switched off before the power returns so I can implement an organised power on.
