UPS Sizing

[KMR]

Hello Folks,

I have the parts on order for my new FreeNAS box and I want to make sure I protect them, so I will be buying a UPS. My current setup is as follows (all of which is in a rack):
-1U Celeron pfSense router (Sandy Bridge)
-2U Celeron PC (Sandy Bridge)
-4U FreeNAS box with Ivy Bridge proc and 6 7200RPM HDD's (Not built yet)
-4U ESXi Server - Xeon 1230v2, 5 HDD's, 32GB RAM

I have my eye on an APC BR1500G with 1500 VA / 865 W capacity. My first concern is the FreeNAS box and then the ESXi box and as long as the other machines are on surge protected outlets I'm happy. Total power failures are relatively rare here so regarding run time I am happy to have the machines shut down after one minute on battery backup. After they are shut down safely I will deal with it when I am able. I know there are a couple of options regarding the shutting down of multiple machines from one USB cable so I will work that out. I just want to make sure that this UPS will have enough juice to do what I want. I really don't think all four of those systems running full tilt would draw 865W, so I think I'm safe but I just wanted to check here first since a UPS is so highly recommended.

As a point of reference all of the systems WITHOUT the FreeNAS box (its down at the moment) are drawing about 200W at the moment as measured by a crappy kill-o-watt meter. They are all basically at idle though.

 

[KMR]

As a follow up, does anyone have experience setting up FreeNAS as a NUT slave? I read online that if I setup a dedicated virtual machine on my ESXi host as the NUT master I can run all the other machines from that. Does anyone have experience with this sort of setup? Alternatively, could I use FreeNAS as the master and run my other machines as slaves? That setup would be even easier, I would think.

 

[William Grzybowski]

FreeNAS does not support NUT in slave mode yet. I don't know if other machines can connect to it but should be possible with some tweaking...

 

[paleoN]

As a follow up, does anyone have experience setting up FreeNAS as a NUT slave?

This is relatively easy to hack in, but ...

Alternatively, could I use FreeNAS as the master and run my other machines as slaves? That setup would be even easier, I would think.

This seems simpler.

I don't know if other machines can connect to it but should be possible with some tweaking...

Enable Remote monitor and add the slave user(s) to Extra users I believe is sufficient.



Also, I don't see how this is a How-To.

 

[KMR]

I'm not sure either.. my post was moved.

So if I have my FreeNAS box setup as master (the default configuration) with the UPS attached via USB then I should be able to get all other network clients setup as slaves to the FreeNAS box? This is provided the switch between all the devices is also on a battery backup outlet.

 

[paleoN]

This is provided the switch between all the devices is also on a battery backup outlet.

Yes, don't forget the switch! The slave machines only need upsmon configured & running for a slave setup. Everything else is configured on the master.

 

[ProtoSD]

I'm not sure either.. my post was moved.

Sorry about that, accidently got moved to the wrong Hardware section... should be fixed now.

 

[KMR]

Okay, great. So should the 1500VA UPS do the trick for my two servers given my requirements (After 1 minute of no power shut it all down)?

Thanks again folks.

 

[Stephens]

This is relatively easy to hack in

If it's relatively easy to hack in, would it follow that it's relatively easy to provide code the FreeNAS developers could use to enable it?

So should the 1500VA UPS do the trick for my two servers given my requirements (After 1 minute of no power shut it all down)?

For the most part, but you've essentially told us minimum load, not maximum. What's power usage look like when everything's running at full blast (including all hard drives)? That's what you size your UPS based on. Anything less is a calculated gamble.

 

[paleoN]

If it's relatively easy to hack in,

It's even easier to search. Which would no doubt that would lead you to Milhouse's rather informative thread on the topic.

would it follow that it's relatively easy to provide code the FreeNAS developers could use to enable it?

As someone with your expertise already knows, it can be an order of magnitude easier to statically hack something into the backend vs having it integrated into the GUI, switching back & forth between both master & slave mode and storing the appropriate information in the database to persist across upgrades.

Given this is a simple feature you are interested in, feel free to start working on something. William appears to be rather busy at the moment with more important things. I imagine he would welcome some code contributions from the community as they seem to happen infrequently.