USB drives, powercuts and UPS....?

[Koldov]

Hi All,

 

We had a powercut last night, but the UPS kicked in and no damage was done it seems.

 

A few flaky computers wouldn't boot this morning but nothing major.

 

Looking through the event logs on the servers this morning, the only thing that stuck out was unexpected USB drive removals (we have 3 externally powered Terabyte drives for local backups). It was about 7 p.m. so no backups were taking place, but it could have been later during a backup, possibly corrupting the drives.

 

It got me thinking though if it was possible to wire them up to the UPS somehow....

 

The UPS has kettle lead females, so I wondered if it was feasible/safe to wire a male kettle lead connector onto the end of a small extension lead?

 

I must admit that sounded great in my head this morning, but now typing it out I'm not so sure....

[newpersn]

Something like this:

 

 

https://www.kenable.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=8296&gclid=COvArcK1-NACFeKV7QodQIsOOw

[Steve21]

Like https://www.amazon.co.uk/MAINS-IEC-MALE-TRAILING-SOCKET/dp/B007Q23IUO ?

 

Steve

[Jawloms]

so I wondered if it was feasible/safe to wire a male kettle lead connector onto the end of a small extension lead?

 

We do this for that exact thing.

[bald_pig]

You need a C14 to socket adapter by the sound of things: https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Cables-Leads/Power-cable-IEC-plug-socket/B005FWRHNQ

[Kingstech]

Another way of doing it is wiring up a 4way extension lead to an IEC C14 plug.

 

| RS Pro C14 Cable Mount IEC Connector Plug, Screw Termination, Rated At 10A, 250 V ac |

[Koldov]

Thank you all! I shall get on this today!!!!

 

I'm glad it's a legit thing, I was convinced I was being a little bit Heath Robinson....

[john]

Something like this:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40361[/ATTACH]

 

https://www.kenable.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=8296&gclid=COvArcK1-NACFeKV7QodQIsOOw

 

I carry one of them in my bag they are a great thing in some places where a 3 pin plug is non-existent such as one of our new offices where we have no other power bar a C16 and the 2x PDUs or in Datacentres

[Garacesh]

The UPS has kettle lead females, so I wondered if it was feasible/safe to wire a male kettle lead connector onto the end of a small extension lead?

Completely safe, provided (as with all electronics) you get the pinout right.

I cut the plug off a 4-gang extension and put a female kettle end on and it runs off my UPS at home fine. Plugged the modem and the router into it. Just be mindful of the combined power draw if you're using more than one plug on the end. I plug my router and modem into it, sure, but despite having 2 more free plugs, I wouldn't plug a PC, TV, kettle, fridge, etc in

(Though it's not being used at the moment because the UPS batteries need replacing.. but the concept of using a plugboard is fine)

[bald_pig]

Completely safe, provided (as with all electronics) you get the pinout right.

I cut the plug off a 4-gang extension and put a female kettle end on and it runs off my UPS at home fine. Plugged the modem and the router into it. Just be mindful of the combined power draw if you're using more than one plug on the end. I plug my router and modem into it, sure, but despite having 2 more free plugs, I wouldn't plug a PC, TV, kettle, fridge, etc in

(Though it's not being used at the moment because the UPS batteries need replacing.. but the concept of using a plugboard is fine)

 

I can't see the point of using a UPS for a home router and modem, you're going from 12v to 240v back to 12v, way too inefficient, I'm making a 12v UPS for my router.

[Garacesh]

I can't see the point of using a UPS for a home router and modem, you're going from 12v to 240v back to 12v, way too inefficient, I'm making a 12v UPS for my router.

 

It's was mostly for the 'it works if there's no power' part when we first moved in. The house is only a few years old so it was in case anything went wrong. Had the landline hooked up to it too (wireless phones, so if the primary base station isn't powered, you can't call out). I run the modem, router and phone off the mains now and haven't bothered to replace the UPS batteries because we know the electrics are fine.

 

Building your own 12v UPS sounds interesting though. Keep records of your progress and PM them to me when you're done?

Edited December 16, 2016 by Garacesh

[3s-gtech]

For small equipment (like our NASs, CCTV units etc) that often doesn't come with an easily converted IEC lead, I use the little APC UPSs with 13A sockets on them https://www.amazon.co.uk/APC-Back-UPS-400-Uninterruptible-protected-x/dp/B000GL19BW. They're cheap, and while not being particularly amazing they've done the job well.

 

Your other possibility is switching to USB powered external drives. We use these for our Time Machine backups on our Mac server (everything else is across the network).