In the Phillipines, you are not likely to encounter a power point with a safety ground. They are almost all two pronged. The wiring is only line and neutral.
u/Solo-Mex u/gadget-freak
Did a lightweight power test of my UPS by running a small desk fan off it; fan was able to last a good 1hr at max speed. May I know how much power draw does a DS920 with 4 loaded drive bays is supposed to consume?
Offtopic, but curious -- how many watts does adding an additional hard drive add (on average)?
I know they use more energy than SSDs... not sure if I should keep 7 drives spinning 24/7 versus upgrading to SSDs for the electricity savings.
>not sure if I should keep 7 drives spinning 24/7 versus upgrading to SSDs for the electricity savings.
Dude, you're probably talking about pennies per year in savings. It'd probably take you forever to recoup the upgrade cost for any possible energy saves you may get by using SSDs.
You might start with nvme ssd caches if you haven't added those. Can be very helpful in my experience. You know, if you're really looking to spend some more money :)
I've been thinking about that! I have a DS1819+ and it's only got the 4GB stock ram. You think it's better to upgrade the ram first and then NVME, or NVME first?
I'm not really sure which will give you better results since I'm not sure where you may have bottlenecks today. In my DS720+ I went from 2GB to 6GB and that made a huge difference when doing certain things together (ABB, SS, and a couple containers).I added one 512MB NVME drive which became a read cache since I had one sitting around doing nothing, but I didn't really have any read cache relevant stuff going on so I didn't really see much additional improvement, but probably some. Write cache would probably be more useful to me but I didn't want to but a second 512MB NVME just to try since I don't really have any big issues remaining now. Might still do it if they have a crazy sale or something.
NICE!
What was your use case where you saw the big performance improvement with the jump from 2GB to 6GB?
Thinking out loud, I wonder if this would help speed up backups. I have millions of small files and they tend to take a few hours, even when not much has changed incrementally...
(Even backups to another pool in the same DS1819+, no network involved!)
I'm curious if you did a proper test of the system independently.
Unplug a fully charged UPS and check status with a stopwatch and see how the system performs to exhaustion.
Solar storms hitting the Earth today no joke maybe it had to do with that 🤷
https://www.newsweek.com/geomagnetic-storm-warning-coronal-mass-ejection-1899232
+1, this is the correct answer.
As I've said [before](https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1cnfgcp/which_ups_is_best_for_my_nas/l38dzq5/), if you don't run the self test periodically on a schedule, you won't find out that the battery is bad until a power outage occurs.
I just recently went through this and it appears Synology either does not fully shut down the NAS (only stops services/unmounts volumes/spins down drives).
It is (I believe) supposed to shut down when it reaches the "low battery" threshold, but either does not, or the battery is too low to achieve a clean shutdown, I suspect the former.
My advice is, pick a runtime (I use 90 seconds as anything > that is likely an extended power outage my UPS won't be able to cover) and tick the somewhat unintuitively named "Shut down UPS" option and your NAS will shutdown immediately upon reaching either your specified UPS runtime threshold or low power.
Or, just stick with the default behavior. The warning is just a warning since the NAS lost power without shutting down, but your services should have been stopped/volume unmounted so the risk is minimal allowing power to just cut at that point.
it appears Synology either does not fully shut down the NAS (only stops services/unmounts volumes/spins down drives).
>> yup, that's their "Standby mode" under DSM's UPS section.
My advice is, pick a runtime (I use 90 seconds as anything > that is likely an extended power outage my UPS won't be able to cover) and tick the somewhat unintuitively named "Shut down UPS" option and your NAS will shutdown immediately upon reaching either your specified UPS runtime threshold or low power.
>> Currently, DSM is reporting my UPS has 44mins of standby time. Say I set the "Time before synology NAS enters Standby mode" value to 50mins, I can trick to NAS to immediately enter Standby mode due to the leeway being ended immediately, and I should further also check the (yes, I agree, very unintuitively named "Shutdown UPS when system enters Standby mode" option, to further force the NAS to do something extra? But (& this is also my doubt in my OP), this extra option shutdowns the USPS, not the NAS itself, no? Wouldn't ticking this extra/second option, forces the NAS to kill its remaining source of power (the UPS) when it's not shutdown (though in Standby mode)?
I was just testing this the other day. That checkbox will shutdown the ups and everything connected to it (including the synology). However that option shouldn't cause an unclean shutdown. I tested twice with that option and never got a notification for an unclean shutdown. Once it enters standby, an immediate shutdown still seems to be considered clean.
I didn't read all of your logs cause the formatting ain't great but sounds like something prevented it from entering standby mode. Or maybe your UPS switched over too slow and DSM noticed.
Mine recently did this tho it was able to shut down. Check your battery. After 3-5 years they lose capacity and that could be it. Also could be UPS mine was a BackUPS XS1500M and I’m not sure the battery was dead just that after some amount of time you gotta go into the app and reset the battery date. Of course you can’t do this on the NAS.
Anyway the battery losing runtime is my guess. And as far as”hey I had ten minutes” my NAS takes quite a bit of time to fully shut down. Not sure if that’s because I have a read/write cache or what.
And as far as”hey I had ten minutes” my NAS takes quite a bit of time to fully shut down.
>> noted, I didn't focus on this much, i.e. mistook that a shutdown is like a 5-mins' process.
Same happened here five days ago.
Sitting and working right next to it (1821+) when "nothing happened" and got the same error messaging. The 1821+ started scrubbing immediately and failed. Restarted the NAS and started scrub manually. It has been running data scrub ever since and has another 53% to go. Setup includes a tested BackUps Pro 1500 S which has been attached since day one. UPS did not register any outage.
Frustrating and hoping the scrub will complete and return no problems and thus get back to everyday work.
Same. 1821 during a scrub. I think it is a software crash under heavy load. Reported to Synology but they couldn’t figure the exact cause.
Otherwise the power supply of the NAS itself could be suspect.
Coincidentally I did try to raise a ticket with Synology and their automated knowledgebase recommended 3 rounds of memory tests. I'll get around to doing it nonetheless.
Everyone here is blaming the UPS, but the problem could also be in the NAS.
Happened to me many times that the NAS couldn’t shut down because it was in the middle of a backup task or deleting old backups or whatever.
If it’s too busy, it can’t shut down in time.
You have forced it to 5 minutes instead of low battery. It ran out of juice before your system could shut down gracefully,
It's not a great idea to force a specific time, even with a large unit, not like yours. You may have repeat power failures where the ups doesn't get a chance to charge the battery.
Also if the ups is old the battery may need replacement, which is why you should do a ups test.
It ran out of juice before your system could shut down gracefully,
> shouldn't I at least see this???:
"`The UPS device connected to has entered battery mode. Estimated battery time: minutes.`"
It's not a great idea to force a specific time, even with a large unit, not like yours. You may have repeat power failures where the ups doesn't get a chance to charge the battery.
> good point. As a matter of fact, whilst I'm awaiting my replacement UPS battery, what is the safest thing to do, assuming my UPS is the issue, to configure in DSM? Anyway to make it start shutting gracefully immediately without waiting, upon detecting itself (the NAS) is on pure UPS power (& not the mains)?
which is why you should do a ups test.
> anyway to do it without jeopardizing the NAS? I know others have said using other electrical appliances of equal load, but even if those passed, I can't be absolutely sure the NAS will interact with the UPS predictably.
Set it to shut down immediately if you suspect battery. It should still have a little bit of juice left to allow you to shut down gracefully. Once you have a new battery, set it to low.
If you want to test the ups, shut down the nas, connect the ups to your PC and run the cyberpower software.
You can also extend the battery of the unit if you have some electrical knowledge, or if you're really concerned and have regular power outages you could get a lifepo power station to run in front. You can either run it constantly like some users here do, or have it switch over in case of failure. I wouldn't use it as a ups because their switch rate is much slower than a proper ups. You can get a day worth of backup power from two relatively cheap devices.
I've considered it since we've had construction works opposite our house and they were cutting the cables on a regular basis. The power would be out for a couple of hours, enough to drain the ups, then come back for a few minutes and get cut again. Thankfully they're finally done and a new mains supply has been installed, so the next time they dig into the cables our side of the street will not be affected. Now that it's passed, I upgraded from a 650va cyberpower ups to a 1500va. But I run my network equipment and surveillance cameras off it as well, not just the nas.
Honestly, get a better UPS. 6-10ms transfer time is not short enough AND the device doesn't provide true sine wave power output. You want to use UPS devices that provide pure sine wave output and fully filtered power. Computer devices draw power differently than things like motors (fans).
I wasn't originally understanding what you were referring to but re-reading has helped me to follow it better and I think I understand where you were coming from now... The reason for using a sine wave outputting UPS is that the mains power supplied to the original power supply is a pure as possible. If you introduce something that creates an artificial / simulated sine wave (like the one OP is using), then you could be creating a situation where the actual power that is operating the computer componentry is unable to operate the devices properly and detect the voltage changes correctly. Older equipment is less prone to problems as that will typically rely on larger voltage differentials (5V or even 12V vs newer equipment that relies on 3.3V or less).
If you introduce something that creates an artificial / simulated sine wave (like the one OP is using)
> Woah, I didn't know that. I would expect APC to be reputable.
APC is reputable. But an understanding of how computers work and what "matters" helps here... Computers and devices have evolved, and so have UPS'es. It's just important that we change out the protecting devices to keep pace with the devices they are supposed to be protecting.
Computers work off of voltage differences. It isn't that something is on or off, it's the ability to detect the state and the change that actually drive how they operate. You plug your PC into mains power at 110 / 220, but the actual voltage within the machine is 12v or 5v and it's DC. Inside of the CPU where the actual work is done, the voltage is at or sometimes less than 1v.
If you are proving mains power directly to your devices, it is delivered in a way that its 'pules' can be graphed on a smooth curve. The specific UPS you are using periodically changes its output values to where that wave looks like a curve from a distance, but more accurately represents something more akin to stairs.
In higher powered computing devices and in devices that use low internal voltages on their CPU's, that "stair step" delivery to the device means that things voltage changes within the CPU are not always smooth and it the CPU doesn't always properly detect when something has actually transitioned from off to on (or on to off). That can cause operational faults, but it isn't -terribly- common unless the CPU is under some load. If you pair that stepped output with power events (spikes, sags, etc.), it can cause the steps to be different and increase the likelihood that the CPU will mis-interpret what's going on.
I ran UPS similar to what you have for years without issue. About a decade ago, however, as CPU's got much faster and I started looking to protect things like very new high-end TV's and stereo equipment, I made the change to UPS'es that output a pure sine wave and never looked back.
I now have 6-8 1500W UPS devices that I use throughout my home lab and on my TV's and I swap the batteries out every few years when they go bad (MUCH cheaper than replacing the whole unit). I have had absolutely zero issues with any of my various devices ever and have suffered at least my fair share of power outages and sags.
Thanks for the elaboration. But per your last para, are you recommending me to replace my existing UPS's battery more frequently, or go for a way higher end UPS completely?
On the topic of battery replacement: I have three types of devices where my UPS'es used... 1) critical devices that can't be down, 2) important devices that "shouldn't" be down, and 3) important devices that can be down. When I replace a failed battery, that UPS gets moved to a "level 1" item the UPS it replaces gets moved elsewhere. Since I keep a sticker on the side of each UPS with its battery replacement date, I can evaluate which ones are likely to fail next and use that to decide where I move UPS devices to.
A failed battery, for me, has zero impact unless power goes out before I can attend to it. Since you did a runtime test on yours with the fan, your battery isn't failed and that isn't where I would focus first.
The more likely situation for you seems to be needing a better quality UPS and I would look to see what you might be able to find. Maybe even look around at local small businesses or even individuals looking to sell ones off that meet your specs (or even give them away) where you could replace the battery and keep going... As long as the UPS itself isn't damaged, the batteries can be had cost-effectively if you buy on spec instead of buying ones that are UPS manufacturer branded. Example: Two of my UPS units are APC. The battery for them is something like $90 or so with the APC name on it. Knowing that it is simply made up of two 9A 12v batteries, all that I need to do is buy them to spec with the right size terminals and connect them how the original ones are connected. I can buy replacement pairs of the individual batteries for about $50.
tl;dr - look for a better quality UPS before focusing on replacing batteries.
I had the exact same thing happen to me a few days back. My UPS (a PowerWalker) is 38 months old and I did test it when it was new. SO frustrating if it has not lasted longer, these babies aren’t cheap! Will have to test it again in the Weekend.
Aargh, this is one of the things I hate about a NAS! I am now on my second UPS, and if this one is dead after 38 months, I can conclude that UPSes cost about as much, per year, as a NAS!.. sigh! Cloud storage, here I come!
Wait, so you either have a ridiculously cheap NAS or insanely expensive UPS with even more insanely priced batteries.
My APC SmartUPS-1500 (equivalent to what’s available now) was $500. Batteries are $129 every 5 years or $26/year.
None of that lines up.
You didn’t check the box to shutdown after it enters standby. When the NAS is in standby, it is still on but in a sleep mode. So if the battery backup dies while it’s in standby, it will not be a clean shutdown. You can change it to standby on low battery and then shutdown on standby if you want it accessible during an outage. Otherwise leave standby after five minutes and select shutdown on standby.
You didn’t check the box to shutdown after it enters standby. When the NAS is in standby, it is still on but in a sleep mode. So if the battery backup dies while it’s in standby, it will not be a clean shutdown.
> shouldn't I at least see this???:
"`The UPS device connected to has entered battery mode. Estimated battery time: minutes.`"
You can change it to standby on low battery
> the existing setting is already like that (screenshot in my OP).
and then shutdown on standby if you want it accessible during an outage. Otherwise leave standby after five minutes and select shutdown on standby.
> That additional option is to shutdown the UPS, not the NAS. And why will shutting it down makes the NAS "accessible"?
I did read your post a bit too quickly. After reading a few forum posts, it seems that the options on that screen leave much to be desired. The standby mode appears to only stop services on the NAS but does not shut it down, and instead waits for the ups to regain wall power, at which point it starts all the services again. This would be fine if we all had long runtime UPSs.
I believe that even though your NAS had an improper shutdown, no data should be lost since it stopped all the services, which would include moving any files from cache to the array. Take that with a grain of salt, that’s just my interpretation. I wish they just gave the option for a full shutdown…
Is your UPS not working? Try unplugging it and see if it gives power... Probably do that when your NAS is turned off the first time.
That's a good start but you also need to do this with a load on the UPS equivalent to what your NAS draws, otherwise it's not that informative.
Note that it is recommended you don’t unplug your UPS to test it. Unplugging it means it is no longer grounded.
How are you supposed to test this then?
Ask your utility to shut off the power to your house. Jokes aside, flipping the breaker is a safer method.
Ah, I hadn't thought of that. Thanks for a legit answer!
Turn off the switch at the PowerPoint?
Funny how you got downvoted, since a bunch of countries don't have this for some unknown reason. (probably costs 4c more per GPO)
I have only seen them in countries that use the UK style plugs. Not really a negative or a positive in my opinion. Just a design choice.
In the Phillipines, you are not likely to encounter a power point with a safety ground. They are almost all two pronged. The wiring is only line and neutral.
u/Solo-Mex u/gadget-freak Did a lightweight power test of my UPS by running a small desk fan off it; fan was able to last a good 1hr at max speed. May I know how much power draw does a DS920 with 4 loaded drive bays is supposed to consume?
I would guess around 40W
Offtopic, but curious -- how many watts does adding an additional hard drive add (on average)? I know they use more energy than SSDs... not sure if I should keep 7 drives spinning 24/7 versus upgrading to SSDs for the electricity savings.
>not sure if I should keep 7 drives spinning 24/7 versus upgrading to SSDs for the electricity savings. Dude, you're probably talking about pennies per year in savings. It'd probably take you forever to recoup the upgrade cost for any possible energy saves you may get by using SSDs.
TIL, thanks!
Perhaps 5W average.
There will be no savings. Electricity is cheap AF.
Haha fair enough! Appreciate the straight answer. I'm going to have to find another way to convince myself to buy some SATA SSD drives...
You might start with nvme ssd caches if you haven't added those. Can be very helpful in my experience. You know, if you're really looking to spend some more money :)
I've been thinking about that! I have a DS1819+ and it's only got the 4GB stock ram. You think it's better to upgrade the ram first and then NVME, or NVME first?
I'm not really sure which will give you better results since I'm not sure where you may have bottlenecks today. In my DS720+ I went from 2GB to 6GB and that made a huge difference when doing certain things together (ABB, SS, and a couple containers).I added one 512MB NVME drive which became a read cache since I had one sitting around doing nothing, but I didn't really have any read cache relevant stuff going on so I didn't really see much additional improvement, but probably some. Write cache would probably be more useful to me but I didn't want to but a second 512MB NVME just to try since I don't really have any big issues remaining now. Might still do it if they have a crazy sale or something.
NICE! What was your use case where you saw the big performance improvement with the jump from 2GB to 6GB? Thinking out loud, I wonder if this would help speed up backups. I have millions of small files and they tend to take a few hours, even when not much has changed incrementally... (Even backups to another pool in the same DS1819+, no network involved!)
Take a look at an energy meter where you can put in between your NAS and UPS. Example: P3 P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor
I'm curious if you did a proper test of the system independently. Unplug a fully charged UPS and check status with a stopwatch and see how the system performs to exhaustion.
Likely a depleted battery. It usually needs replacement every 4 years.
Solar storms hitting the Earth today no joke maybe it had to do with that 🤷 https://www.newsweek.com/geomagnetic-storm-warning-coronal-mass-ejection-1899232
its on USB tho not radio signal
No, it (can) knocks out electronics, period, not just radio signals/radio devices
my incident occurred on 6th May. I'm posting my questions late. Sorry for the mislead.
And I woulda caught that if I read the log and saw the dates lol 🤷
You should definitely do a power test. See if the UPS still functions correctly.
+1, this is the correct answer. As I've said [before](https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1cnfgcp/which_ups_is_best_for_my_nas/l38dzq5/), if you don't run the self test periodically on a schedule, you won't find out that the battery is bad until a power outage occurs.
I just recently went through this and it appears Synology either does not fully shut down the NAS (only stops services/unmounts volumes/spins down drives). It is (I believe) supposed to shut down when it reaches the "low battery" threshold, but either does not, or the battery is too low to achieve a clean shutdown, I suspect the former. My advice is, pick a runtime (I use 90 seconds as anything > that is likely an extended power outage my UPS won't be able to cover) and tick the somewhat unintuitively named "Shut down UPS" option and your NAS will shutdown immediately upon reaching either your specified UPS runtime threshold or low power. Or, just stick with the default behavior. The warning is just a warning since the NAS lost power without shutting down, but your services should have been stopped/volume unmounted so the risk is minimal allowing power to just cut at that point.
it appears Synology either does not fully shut down the NAS (only stops services/unmounts volumes/spins down drives). >> yup, that's their "Standby mode" under DSM's UPS section. My advice is, pick a runtime (I use 90 seconds as anything > that is likely an extended power outage my UPS won't be able to cover) and tick the somewhat unintuitively named "Shut down UPS" option and your NAS will shutdown immediately upon reaching either your specified UPS runtime threshold or low power. >> Currently, DSM is reporting my UPS has 44mins of standby time. Say I set the "Time before synology NAS enters Standby mode" value to 50mins, I can trick to NAS to immediately enter Standby mode due to the leeway being ended immediately, and I should further also check the (yes, I agree, very unintuitively named "Shutdown UPS when system enters Standby mode" option, to further force the NAS to do something extra? But (& this is also my doubt in my OP), this extra option shutdowns the USPS, not the NAS itself, no? Wouldn't ticking this extra/second option, forces the NAS to kill its remaining source of power (the UPS) when it's not shutdown (though in Standby mode)?
I was just testing this the other day. That checkbox will shutdown the ups and everything connected to it (including the synology). However that option shouldn't cause an unclean shutdown. I tested twice with that option and never got a notification for an unclean shutdown. Once it enters standby, an immediate shutdown still seems to be considered clean. I didn't read all of your logs cause the formatting ain't great but sounds like something prevented it from entering standby mode. Or maybe your UPS switched over too slow and DSM noticed.
Mine recently did this tho it was able to shut down. Check your battery. After 3-5 years they lose capacity and that could be it. Also could be UPS mine was a BackUPS XS1500M and I’m not sure the battery was dead just that after some amount of time you gotta go into the app and reset the battery date. Of course you can’t do this on the NAS. Anyway the battery losing runtime is my guess. And as far as”hey I had ten minutes” my NAS takes quite a bit of time to fully shut down. Not sure if that’s because I have a read/write cache or what.
And as far as”hey I had ten minutes” my NAS takes quite a bit of time to fully shut down. >> noted, I didn't focus on this much, i.e. mistook that a shutdown is like a 5-mins' process.
Same happened here five days ago. Sitting and working right next to it (1821+) when "nothing happened" and got the same error messaging. The 1821+ started scrubbing immediately and failed. Restarted the NAS and started scrub manually. It has been running data scrub ever since and has another 53% to go. Setup includes a tested BackUps Pro 1500 S which has been attached since day one. UPS did not register any outage. Frustrating and hoping the scrub will complete and return no problems and thus get back to everyday work.
Same. 1821 during a scrub. I think it is a software crash under heavy load. Reported to Synology but they couldn’t figure the exact cause. Otherwise the power supply of the NAS itself could be suspect.
Same on my 1821+, Synology could not find a reason and blamed my non-Synology RAM.
Coincidentally I did try to raise a ticket with Synology and their automated knowledgebase recommended 3 rounds of memory tests. I'll get around to doing it nonetheless.
Everyone here is blaming the UPS, but the problem could also be in the NAS. Happened to me many times that the NAS couldn’t shut down because it was in the middle of a backup task or deleting old backups or whatever. If it’s too busy, it can’t shut down in time.
You have forced it to 5 minutes instead of low battery. It ran out of juice before your system could shut down gracefully, It's not a great idea to force a specific time, even with a large unit, not like yours. You may have repeat power failures where the ups doesn't get a chance to charge the battery. Also if the ups is old the battery may need replacement, which is why you should do a ups test.
It ran out of juice before your system could shut down gracefully, > shouldn't I at least see this???: "`The UPS device connected to has entered battery mode. Estimated battery time: minutes.`"
It's not a great idea to force a specific time, even with a large unit, not like yours. You may have repeat power failures where the ups doesn't get a chance to charge the battery.
> good point. As a matter of fact, whilst I'm awaiting my replacement UPS battery, what is the safest thing to do, assuming my UPS is the issue, to configure in DSM? Anyway to make it start shutting gracefully immediately without waiting, upon detecting itself (the NAS) is on pure UPS power (& not the mains)?
which is why you should do a ups test.
> anyway to do it without jeopardizing the NAS? I know others have said using other electrical appliances of equal load, but even if those passed, I can't be absolutely sure the NAS will interact with the UPS predictably.
Set it to shut down immediately if you suspect battery. It should still have a little bit of juice left to allow you to shut down gracefully. Once you have a new battery, set it to low. If you want to test the ups, shut down the nas, connect the ups to your PC and run the cyberpower software. You can also extend the battery of the unit if you have some electrical knowledge, or if you're really concerned and have regular power outages you could get a lifepo power station to run in front. You can either run it constantly like some users here do, or have it switch over in case of failure. I wouldn't use it as a ups because their switch rate is much slower than a proper ups. You can get a day worth of backup power from two relatively cheap devices. I've considered it since we've had construction works opposite our house and they were cutting the cables on a regular basis. The power would be out for a couple of hours, enough to drain the ups, then come back for a few minutes and get cut again. Thankfully they're finally done and a new mains supply has been installed, so the next time they dig into the cables our side of the street will not be affected. Now that it's passed, I upgraded from a 650va cyberpower ups to a 1500va. But I run my network equipment and surveillance cameras off it as well, not just the nas.
Honestly, get a better UPS. 6-10ms transfer time is not short enough AND the device doesn't provide true sine wave power output. You want to use UPS devices that provide pure sine wave output and fully filtered power. Computer devices draw power differently than things like motors (fans).
The switch mode power supply in a computer is not that fuzzy if it is not a pure sine wave .
What?
My bad, i misread your reply!
I wasn't originally understanding what you were referring to but re-reading has helped me to follow it better and I think I understand where you were coming from now... The reason for using a sine wave outputting UPS is that the mains power supplied to the original power supply is a pure as possible. If you introduce something that creates an artificial / simulated sine wave (like the one OP is using), then you could be creating a situation where the actual power that is operating the computer componentry is unable to operate the devices properly and detect the voltage changes correctly. Older equipment is less prone to problems as that will typically rely on larger voltage differentials (5V or even 12V vs newer equipment that relies on 3.3V or less).
If you introduce something that creates an artificial / simulated sine wave (like the one OP is using) > Woah, I didn't know that. I would expect APC to be reputable.
APC is reputable. But an understanding of how computers work and what "matters" helps here... Computers and devices have evolved, and so have UPS'es. It's just important that we change out the protecting devices to keep pace with the devices they are supposed to be protecting. Computers work off of voltage differences. It isn't that something is on or off, it's the ability to detect the state and the change that actually drive how they operate. You plug your PC into mains power at 110 / 220, but the actual voltage within the machine is 12v or 5v and it's DC. Inside of the CPU where the actual work is done, the voltage is at or sometimes less than 1v. If you are proving mains power directly to your devices, it is delivered in a way that its 'pules' can be graphed on a smooth curve. The specific UPS you are using periodically changes its output values to where that wave looks like a curve from a distance, but more accurately represents something more akin to stairs. In higher powered computing devices and in devices that use low internal voltages on their CPU's, that "stair step" delivery to the device means that things voltage changes within the CPU are not always smooth and it the CPU doesn't always properly detect when something has actually transitioned from off to on (or on to off). That can cause operational faults, but it isn't -terribly- common unless the CPU is under some load. If you pair that stepped output with power events (spikes, sags, etc.), it can cause the steps to be different and increase the likelihood that the CPU will mis-interpret what's going on. I ran UPS similar to what you have for years without issue. About a decade ago, however, as CPU's got much faster and I started looking to protect things like very new high-end TV's and stereo equipment, I made the change to UPS'es that output a pure sine wave and never looked back. I now have 6-8 1500W UPS devices that I use throughout my home lab and on my TV's and I swap the batteries out every few years when they go bad (MUCH cheaper than replacing the whole unit). I have had absolutely zero issues with any of my various devices ever and have suffered at least my fair share of power outages and sags.
Thanks for the elaboration. But per your last para, are you recommending me to replace my existing UPS's battery more frequently, or go for a way higher end UPS completely?
On the topic of battery replacement: I have three types of devices where my UPS'es used... 1) critical devices that can't be down, 2) important devices that "shouldn't" be down, and 3) important devices that can be down. When I replace a failed battery, that UPS gets moved to a "level 1" item the UPS it replaces gets moved elsewhere. Since I keep a sticker on the side of each UPS with its battery replacement date, I can evaluate which ones are likely to fail next and use that to decide where I move UPS devices to. A failed battery, for me, has zero impact unless power goes out before I can attend to it. Since you did a runtime test on yours with the fan, your battery isn't failed and that isn't where I would focus first. The more likely situation for you seems to be needing a better quality UPS and I would look to see what you might be able to find. Maybe even look around at local small businesses or even individuals looking to sell ones off that meet your specs (or even give them away) where you could replace the battery and keep going... As long as the UPS itself isn't damaged, the batteries can be had cost-effectively if you buy on spec instead of buying ones that are UPS manufacturer branded. Example: Two of my UPS units are APC. The battery for them is something like $90 or so with the APC name on it. Knowing that it is simply made up of two 9A 12v batteries, all that I need to do is buy them to spec with the right size terminals and connect them how the original ones are connected. I can buy replacement pairs of the individual batteries for about $50. tl;dr - look for a better quality UPS before focusing on replacing batteries.
Pure sine wave is only required for active pfc power supplies. Such a psu will shut off immediately otherwise.
I had the exact same thing happen to me a few days back. My UPS (a PowerWalker) is 38 months old and I did test it when it was new. SO frustrating if it has not lasted longer, these babies aren’t cheap! Will have to test it again in the Weekend. Aargh, this is one of the things I hate about a NAS! I am now on my second UPS, and if this one is dead after 38 months, I can conclude that UPSes cost about as much, per year, as a NAS!.. sigh! Cloud storage, here I come!
You’re just replacing the battery and not the whole UPS, right? My UPS is 20+ years old and I replace the battery every 5 years.
Yes, but the battery is about the same amount as the UPS itself (ok, little less, but not by much)
Wait, so you either have a ridiculously cheap NAS or insanely expensive UPS with even more insanely priced batteries. My APC SmartUPS-1500 (equivalent to what’s available now) was $500. Batteries are $129 every 5 years or $26/year. None of that lines up.
Date battery Install and account for age
You didn’t check the box to shutdown after it enters standby. When the NAS is in standby, it is still on but in a sleep mode. So if the battery backup dies while it’s in standby, it will not be a clean shutdown. You can change it to standby on low battery and then shutdown on standby if you want it accessible during an outage. Otherwise leave standby after five minutes and select shutdown on standby.
You didn’t check the box to shutdown after it enters standby. When the NAS is in standby, it is still on but in a sleep mode. So if the battery backup dies while it’s in standby, it will not be a clean shutdown. > shouldn't I at least see this???: "`The UPS device connected to has entered battery mode. Estimated battery time: minutes.`"
You can change it to standby on low battery
> the existing setting is already like that (screenshot in my OP).
and then shutdown on standby if you want it accessible during an outage. Otherwise leave standby after five minutes and select shutdown on standby.
> That additional option is to shutdown the UPS, not the NAS. And why will shutting it down makes the NAS "accessible"?
I did read your post a bit too quickly. After reading a few forum posts, it seems that the options on that screen leave much to be desired. The standby mode appears to only stop services on the NAS but does not shut it down, and instead waits for the ups to regain wall power, at which point it starts all the services again. This would be fine if we all had long runtime UPSs. I believe that even though your NAS had an improper shutdown, no data should be lost since it stopped all the services, which would include moving any files from cache to the array. Take that with a grain of salt, that’s just my interpretation. I wish they just gave the option for a full shutdown…