UPS Recommendation for my NAS

[Sabarok]

I'm thinking of getting a UPS for my home setup. This is what I'm planning on plugging into it:

• Synology DS220j (12.5W while being accessed according to the website)
• My 65" TV Sony X900H (I couldn't find power usage specs for it)
• A cable modem (Technicolor TC4350)
• Wifi Router (Netgear R6350)

The last few outages I've had have been very brief. So brief that my PC was able to stay up and not reboot, but it did reset my modem, and I had to wait several minutes before I could get back online (and it happened during a meeting while I was talking). I want to have my network gear plugged in for that reason.

 

If an outage does last longer, having my TV and NAS plugged in and able to watch videos for a few hours would be really cool. A friend of mine who also has a Synology DS220 said he was able to plug it in via USB so the NAS would safely shut down when the UPS ran low. Having that support would be cool.

 

There's also the potential of plugging in some idle consoles. I remember the PS3 in particular being rather fussy if it don't get shut down properly, but it wouldn't be to play them during an outage (I expect that would drain the UPS quite quickly).

 

I've never bought a UPS before, so I don't know what to look for. Looking at Newegg, I see a lot of options in the $100-$300 CAD range, and I feel like that's an appropriate budget for what I think my requirements are.

 

By comparison, if I were to get a UPS for my gaming PC (5950x w/ GTX 3080, 850W PSU) & gaming monitor (1440p 100hz), with the requirement that it be able to last maybe 15 minutes, just enough to make sure I can safely close down whatever game I'm playing, what would I be looking to get?

 

I already have surge protectors on all my devices (APC P11U2). Would I plug the surge protector into the UPS, plug the UPS into the surge protector, or remove the surge protector from the equation and have my devices plugged into the UPS that's plugged into the wall?

[AbydosOne]

7 minutes ago, Sabarok said:

If an outage does last longer, having my TV and NAS plugged in and able to watch videos for a few hours would be really cool.

Most consumer UPSes will only last maybe 5-10 minutes under load. They're not for "using the devices during outage" and more for "make sure nothing is lost because of outage".

 

20 minutes ago, Sabarok said:

By comparison, if I were to get a UPS for my gaming PC (5950x w/ GTX 3080, 850W PSU) & gaming monitor (1440p 100hz), with the requirement that it be able to last maybe 15 minutes, just enough to make sure I can safely close down whatever game I'm playing, what would I be looking to get?

Something like this will get you maybe 5 minutes at full load, and you'd be pretty close to max capacity. That size seems to be the cap of "consumer" UPSes before you get into larger/much more expensive models.

[Sabarok]

29 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

Most consumer UPSes will only last maybe 5-10 minutes under load. They're not for "using the devices during outage" and more for "make sure nothing is lost because of outage".

 

Something like this will get you maybe 5 minutes at full load, and you'd be pretty close to max capacity. That size seems to be the cap of "consumer" UPSes before you get into larger/much more expensive models.

That is useful info. I was hoping that since my Chromebook's battery can last 6 hours, that a bigger battery on a TV would also have a decent life span.

[Blue4130]

32 minutes ago, Sabarok said:

That is useful info. I was hoping that since my Chromebook's battery can last 6 hours, that a bigger battery on a TV would also have a decent life span.

LG and Sumsung list around 300w for similar spec tv's. It's a safe bet that you would be in the same range. That is significantly more than a chromebook.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

1 hour ago, Sabarok said:

If an outage does last longer, having my TV and NAS plugged in and able to watch videos for a few hours would be really cool. A friend of mine who also has a Synology DS220 said he was able to plug it in via USB so the NAS would safely shut down when the UPS ran low. Having that support would be cool.

You're not going to find a UPS that does this.  That would require a huge amount of power. UPS's are DC powered, usually 48v DC, which then has to be converted to 110AC and this is an inefficient process even with no load, then your PSU converts that AC to DC for the internal components.  This is true for basically everything.  In short, you're looking at 10-20mins of run time on the kind of hardware you want to run.  You'd need a huge pack of batteries to keep a TV and NAS going.

I have a 1500va UPS and I am able to get 2hrs but that involves running under 50w load.  It can run my pfSense box, an unmanaged network switch, and wifi access point for about 2hrs but that run time drops massively when you add any other load.

 

You're not going to find a UPS that will run your TV and NAS for hours short of something the size of a mini fridge.

[Sabarok]

2 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

LG and Sumsung list around 300w for similar spec tv's. It's a safe bet that you would be in the same range. That is significantly more than a chromebook.

 

1 hour ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

You're not going to find a UPS that does this.  That would require a huge amount of power. UPS's are DC powered, usually 48v DC, which then has to be converted to 110AC and this is an inefficient process even with no load, then your PSU converts that AC to DC for the internal components.  This is true for basically everything.  In short, you're looking at 10-20mins of run time on the kind of hardware you want to run.  You'd need a huge pack of batteries to keep a TV and NAS going.

I have a 1500va UPS and I am able to get 2hrs but that involves running under 50w load.  It can run my pfSense box, an unmanaged network switch, and wifi access point for about 2hrs but that run time drops massively when you add any other load.

 

You're not going to find a UPS that will run your TV and NAS for hours short of something the size of a mini fridge.

So what I'm hearing is that, instead of using my TV plugged into the UPS, I should use my chromebook (running off its battery, once I've safely turned everything else off).

 

An outage that lasts more than a few minutes is something like a once-a-year thing, so I'm not going to go far in trying to be setup for that. It sounds like I might be able to get an hour of video streaming to my Chromebook on a UPS that's around $200, which would be a nice bonus.

 

Thank you for helping to keep things realistic 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

2 minutes ago, Sabarok said:

 

So what I'm hearing is that, instead of using my TV plugged into the UPS, I should use my chromebook (running off its battery, once I've safely turned everything else off).

 

An outage that lasts more than a few minutes is something like a once-a-year thing, so I'm not going to go far in trying to be setup for that. It sounds like I might be able to get an hour of video streaming to my Chromebook on a UPS that's around $200, which would be a nice bonus.

 

Thank you for helping to keep things realistic 

If you want something more suitable to keep toys going in a black out, you can look at something like this:

https://www.aimtom.com/product/sps300/

Not this specific model, there's just a whole bunch of things like this.  The key thing is that while this does have a 110v AC port, you don't have to use that, you can turn that off and skip the heavy power draw of the DC to AC converter (And additional loss from the power adapter then doing AC to DC conversion).  You can get the 'car charger' adapter for your laptop and plug that in there instead, that's a DC to DC, same with the additional DC barrel jacks and the USB ports.  Vastly more efficient.  That'll keep your devices charged much better than a UPS ever could.

[Sabarok]

9 hours ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

If you want something more suitable to keep toys going in a black out, you can look at something like this:

https://www.aimtom.com/product/sps300/

Not this specific model, there's just a whole bunch of things like this.  The key thing is that while this does have a 110v AC port, you don't have to use that, you can turn that off and skip the heavy power draw of the DC to AC converter (And additional loss from the power adapter then doing AC to DC conversion).  You can get the 'car charger' adapter for your laptop and plug that in there instead, that's a DC to DC, same with the additional DC barrel jacks and the USB ports.  Vastly more efficient.  That'll keep your devices charged much better than a UPS ever could.

Am I seeing this right that this stores 50x the power? That's a big difference.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

2 hours ago, Sabarok said:

Am I seeing this right that this stores 50x the power? That's a big difference.

It's important to understand that this is not really a UPS.  It's a giant phone battery bank with extra connectors.  A UPS sits there and makes sure you keep running even as the power fails.  This you pull out of the closet when you have no other sources of power, or take with you camping or take to the park to run your stuff on the 4th Of July celebrations.   These are not the same kinds of devices.

[Mihle]

On 6/15/2021 at 10:58 PM, Sabarok said:

I'm thinking of getting a UPS for my home setup. This is what I'm planning on plugging into it:

• Synology DS220j (12.5W while being accessed according to the website)
• My 65" TV Sony X900H (I couldn't find power usage specs for it)
• A cable modem (Technicolor TC4350)
• Wifi Router (Netgear R6350)

The last few outages I've had have been very brief. So brief that my PC was able to stay up and not reboot, but it did reset my modem, and I had to wait several minutes before I could get back online (and it happened during a meeting while I was talking). I want to have my network gear plugged in for that reason.

 

If an outage does last longer, having my TV and NAS plugged in and able to watch videos for a few hours would be really cool. A friend of mine who also has a Synology DS220 said he was able to plug it in via USB so the NAS would safely shut down when the UPS ran low. Having that support would be cool.

 

There's also the potential of plugging in some idle consoles. I remember the PS3 in particular being rather fussy if it don't get shut down properly, but it wouldn't be to play them during an outage (I expect that would drain the UPS quite quickly).

 

I've never bought a UPS before, so I don't know what to look for. Looking at Newegg, I see a lot of options in the $100-$300 CAD range, and I feel like that's an appropriate budget for what I think my requirements are.

 

By comparison, if I were to get a UPS for my gaming PC (5950x w/ GTX 3080, 850W PSU) & gaming monitor (1440p 100hz), with the requirement that it be able to last maybe 15 minutes, just enough to make sure I can safely close down whatever game I'm playing, what would I be looking to get?

 

I already have surge protectors on all my devices (APC P11U2). Would I plug the surge protector into the UPS, plug the UPS into the surge protector, or remove the surge protector from the equation and have my devices plugged into the UPS that's plugged into the wall?

For the TV and NAS it really depends on what powwrr they draw, so first step is to figure out their power draw.

If they draw 80w total or 180w matter ALOT, unless you want to spend s ton, don't expect anything above maybe half an hour, but if you know the power draw that is much easier to say.

 

One way to figure that out is buying one of those things you put in the socket, then plug the TV, router/modem and NAS in to it, and use it. Then see what it uses, maybe look at max power draw over a time rather than what is right when you look at it. You can also just guess based on the specs but will be little inaccurate.

 

For the PC, you shouldn't aim for anything above 10 minutes or less unless you want to spend a ton.

 

Some of the UPS manufacturers have a calculator where you can put in power draw and then see how long it will last on battery, at least Eaton does, maybe APC does too but don't remember, just search the web for them.

 

Most UPSes have surge protectors built in, so with one you don't need the stand alone surge protector.