Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 14 years old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.My wife called me at work the other day to report she couldn’t get on the wireless network at home and that there was a loud whining coming from the computer closet. It turned out the UPS (an APC BX800 I bought in 2004) had bit the dust and all of the equipment (server, router, cable modem, NASes, etc.) was off. I had replaced the original batteries (with spares from Batteries Plus) in this UPS back in December 2008, but apparently after 16 months they were dead!
Rather than replace the batteries again, I decided to just replace the whole unit. Normally I would buy another APC using their Trade-UPS program, but after some quick research I determined I could get a better, more powerful UPS cheaper and faster via Amazon. I chose the CyberPower CP1000AVRLCD, a 9-outlet, 1000VA/600W UPS with a nice LCD display (which turns off automatically after a few minutes and allows you to cycle through various information such as load, input/output voltages, battery run-time remaining, etc). Not only does the CyberPower have more VAs (1000 vs. 800) and outlets (9 vs. 7) than the APC, it’s actually smaller and has more features:
APC on left, CyberPower on right
APC on left, CyberPower on right
I had no problem swapping the units and getting everything back up and running. I connected the UPS via USB cable to my Linux server and NUT recognized it without any problem. Now when I had replaced the batteries in the APC in 2008, NUT thought the UPS was in a constant low battery (LB) condition (maybe due to the third-party batteries?). So when the power would go out NUT would immediately think the UPS was drained and shut everything down. As a result, I had disabled all of the automatic shutdown features and low battery warnings back then. With the CyberPower now in the loop, however, I was able to re-enable all of those features so that’s a nice benefit too.
I did a quick power test (by unplugging the UPS from the wall) to make sure I received the notification e-mails when the UPS switched to battery power and then back to line power. Then to test the shutdown configuration, I pulled the plug again and let the UPS run on battery until the low battery condition was reached.
Everything stayed up for about 23 minutes, at which point the LB event was triggered and NUT gracefully shut down the server and then powered off the UPS. A successful test!
As for the old APC? I dropped it off at Staples for proper recycling (which cost me $10 plus sales tax, what?).