Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler ABCs of APC UPSs

Huh?

Anyway, I'm a big user of UPS units... I literally have probably 12 or so in use and another 3-4 down in my workshop with a need for replacements. ALL of them are APC units, and almost all of them are ~1100 ~ 1200 units, purchased at Sam's Club, etc... NOT from a "pro" or "Server" line. I'm beginning to wonder about the quality of them.

It seems as though when I buy a unit, I only get maybe a year and a half to two years tops out of it before the "battery warning" starts buzzing and letting me know it needs a replacement. And when the batteries run ~$120 or so, I typically feel like I might as well buy a whole new unit for ~$180 instead.

Have any of you IT people in the "know" been hearing anything about UPS units and lifespan, quality, etc.?

I just hauled one out of my office because it was putting out a stink like burning hair or like it just went to the salon and got a perm! I've smelled something similar once when a capacitor blew in a flash head. It was hot as hell, too. I put it out on my back porch an hour ago, and I still can't touch the bottom metal plate. At least nothing caught fire. Yet.

I think I need a new one ASAP!

I'm pretty sure we had an approx. 2 year replacement cycle on APC UPS batteries back when I was responsible for the servers that were plugged into them.

So you're thinking that this might just be typical? Maybe I'm expecting too much in assuming that the lead acid batteries in there should be good for 4 years, like all the ones I used to use for portable lights in video production or like a car battery?

The way the UPS uses the battery is what cuts its life in half. Because the UPS wants to deliver a maximum run time in the event of power failure the battery is always topped off. Normal use of a battery is to run it down quite a bit before charging it again.

I was looking at a PurePower UPS, which is intended for home theater use (and has a price tag which gives away that intention). One nice thing about is it does periodically run on battery to attempt to keep the cells conditioned.

2 years. Uh huh. Unless you're talking about different ones than the ones I inherited, Peter, it was more like 6-8 years. That's actually about the point where I generally see them fail. Mark, are you using Smart-UPS or Back-UPS? Smart-UPS seem to last a lot longer.

Hmmmm... all the ones immediately around me are Back-UPS....

Ah yeah, those things die quickly.

Interesting. The ups units in our plant are all APC and are between 3 and 5 years old. We had the first two fail this year (one today).

I'll probably end up with an APC because I'll need something sooner rather than later, and they're so widely available. And, I probably WON'T get the SMART UPS line, because I'll just have a hard time convincing Joyce (and myself too, I guess) that they're worth being more than double the cost...

I guess this has still been helpful as no one has said unequivocally that APC brand units have reliability issues.

Are you doing the Trade-UPS program? Might knock a little bit off the cost.