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Backup Battery Recommendation

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by wancona

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I just recently moved my servers to a better ventilated room and found out that there is only one backup battery that the servers are plugged into. how many backup batteries would be necessary to keep my system up in case of a disaster, which would allow me adequate time to get everything properly shut down.

5 replies

by bart777

It's going to depend on how many things you have plugged into the UPS and how long YOU want them up. Keep in mind that most of these devices should be plugged into the server via a serial or USB cable so that they can order the server to shutdown in the even the batteries get too low.

You will need to do a little research and see what your current device is rated to. I would also plan to run a test on it during some off hours so that you can verify that the thing even works and has good batteries in it.

Shop around and see who you can get them from locally. APC is a good name.

Best of luck.

by wancona

Do I really need more than one backup battery? I remember someone telling me a while back that you need enough power so that your systems are running for at least two hours or something like that. Or was it you need twice as many batteries as you have server machines. I just want to make sure everything would be okay. We have two batteries currently, but after moving everything I realized that the second battery had the switches and routers plugged into it.

So I was just wondering if there was somewhat of a "Standard" practice or something.

by robo_dev

Remember it's not the number of batteries or the number of UPS units, it's the amount of VAH (volt amp hours) you need.

How much power are you using (total VA requirements) 120V server that draws 20 amps requires 2400 VA UPS (approximately).

How much runtime do you need? (H requirement)

Total requirement = VA*H (with some limitations) So to keep that server running for an hour, you would need a 2400 VA UPS (the hour is assumed).

How long does your backup process take at night? You should make sure you've got enough runtime to complete it. And you need to periodically test the UPS process to make sure that the batteries are working.

Also consider the usage of software that gracefully shuts down the servers (eg APC PowerChute).

Also think about future expansion as well as redundancy, and what hardware devices are most important (e.g. your database server versus your web server). Since dialtone is fairly critical, make sure the phone system and it's related gear has the most runtime.

Having multiple units makes for fewer single points of failure, and can make maintenance easier. Most units allow you to hot-swap batteries, so you don't have to shutdown everything to replace a battery.

Note that UPS runtime figures, like Miles per gallon, and investment results, can be wildly incorrect. The big names like APC or TrippLite tend to get it right, but some other vendors are wildly optimistic about their runtimes.

by jm.saucedo

Here at tech support we went for cheap $50 Batterys from Tripp-Lite, wich dont last more than 2 months, then we got from tripp-lite other types, around $150 each and those have been there for almost a year now, and we had several Blackouts because of Rain and wind.

So you get what you pay for.

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