UPS Failure Quirk, how worried should I be?

[Steve Guttag]

The line interactive units we've used from Tripplite and APC are not that much cheaper than the double-conversion ones. In fact, the APC line interactives are about the same price as the Trippllite on-lines. The APCs don't drop out on low batteries like the Tripplites do, however. With UPSes, I've taken to also using an ATS to avoid a single point of failure.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I do use a standard 1500 VA APC UPS here at home.

Same. I've had an old school 1500VA "SmartUPS" model for at least 12 years at home, and was probably 4 years old when I got it 2nd hand. I only service it when it starts to alarm about the batteries, it's had 3 sets of batteries since I've owned it. The battery module is hot swappable if I had a 2nd module. And it does periodic self tests... it is after one of these tests that it will start alarming about batteries being out of range. I guess it was naive to expect all similar 2U rack mount UPS units to have the same feature set.

Had a computer motherboard die in a storm after college... i'm sure this has saved me from a repeat experience many times.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Same. I've had an old school 1500VA "SmartUPS" model for at least 12 years at home, and was probably 4 years old when I got it 2nd hand. I only service it when it starts to alarm about the batteries, it's had 3 sets of batteries since I've owned it. The battery module is hot swappable if I had a 2nd module. And it does periodic self tests... it is after one of these tests that it will start alarming about batteries being out of range. I guess it was naive to expect all similar 2U rack mount UPS units to have the same feature set.

Had a computer motherboard die in a storm after college... i'm sure this has saved me from a repeat experience many times.

Yea, they are pretty good devices. If you had had it when the storm hit you may have lost the UPS, but likely not the motherboard. The outlets on mine are mainly UPS outlets, but it has an extra pair that are surge protected only. I automatically replace the batteries in my own stuff about every three years, so it is on it's second set as of last November.