UPS Lifespan

[petben]

Hello, has anyone got school specific info on the recommended life of a UPS and its batteries.

 

e.g.

• we have a couple of UPS's 10 years old with 4 year old batteries
  
• we have a couple of UPS's 5 years old with original batteries
  

 

Thanks

[MatthewL]

Batteries no more than 5 years old. The UPS I would only replace if its faulty.

 

One thing we have neglected to do is get the UPS serviced by a professional, never discharge batteries there just left there ticking along, so probably don't get the best out of them. I do recommend swapping batteries out they don't last forever and don't let them to get to a point where they smell like rotten eggs and you cannot get them out of the physical UPS. You can swap them with no downtime too.

[chazzy2501]

I've not seen batteries (gel acid type) last more than 3 years. The UPS self test usually weeds them out. I had some 15yo UPSes and 1 blew up, 2 others failed when they were needed (comms fault). So probably don't wait for an issue like I did.

[PotNoodleTech]

Depends on the manufacturer.

 

APC 3 years and the batts will be on the way out.

 

Eaton I have two units that are 6 years old original batteries no issues and still 1 hour run time. They are very low stress 10kva worth only running about 1kva of kit.

 

I think the main problem with battery life comes when most people buy the cheapest they can get away with like a 500w ups and plug a 500w server into it so it's always running flat out and doesnt last long.

[Chris_Cook]

I'd also consider the ups setup as well. If the equipment has dual PSUs fed from 2 UPSs, or you have a maintenance/changeover switch, then I'd be more likely to push it longer as you could swap the UPS out of hours. If its single PSU, then you risk downtime if it fails - so scheduled downtime with replacement out of hours would be best before it fails.

 

It also depends on the quality of your power. The batteries will probably be dead after about 2 power cuts. Other components can be damaged by spikes in the voltage, heat etc.

 

I wouldn't want to push critical infrastructure past 10 years.

 

APC says this:

 

https://www.se.com/uk/en/faqs/FAQ000265093/

For anything mission critical, I'd be inclined to stick closely to the manufacturers guidelines if only to CYA when it goes wrong.

[pete]

Manufacturer guidelines and make sure you've got automated testing configured and it emails you the results.

[MatthewL]

The batteries themselves are not that expensive in im option to replace. If I am honest with you unless the rest of the site has power what is the point of having a UPS as nothing will be able to connect to the servers that are powered on! You can get generator solutions to power whole buildings for a reasonable price if your going to do it!

[steveg]

The batteries themselves are not that expensive in im option to replace. If I am honest with you unless the rest of the site has power what is the point of having a UPS as nothing will be able to connect to the servers that are powered on! You can get generator solutions to power whole buildings for a reasonable price if your going to do it!

 

Protection against power surges, allowing servers to complete a proper shutdown (or not have to shut down at all in a short power cut) and ensuring voip phone systems still run are 3 pretty good reasons for having them.

[Davit2005]

The batteries themselves are not that expensive in im option to replace. If I am honest with you unless the rest of the site has power what is the point of having a UPS as nothing will be able to connect to the servers that are powered on! You can get generator solutions to power whole buildings for a reasonable price if your going to do it!

 

If you are totally cloud then prob little point. But if you have VOIP phones might be worth getting one to cover the firewall, Core switches and maybe some key areas.

 

You certainly don't want servers shutting down improperly, especially if they have RAID with out battery backup.

 

At a previous place we used to have long power cuts and it was getting to the stage where I'd be shutting down non-critical servers to prolong battery life. As others have said you want to size your UPS devices appropriately.

[PotNoodleTech]

At a previous place we used to have long power cuts and it was getting to the stage where I'd be shutting down non-critical servers to prolong battery life. As others have said you want to size your UPS devices appropriately.

 

Yep and 90+% of people size them too small just to save a few quid.

[Chris_Cook]

The batteries themselves are not that expensive in im option to replace. If I am honest with you unless the rest of the site has power what is the point of having a UPS as nothing will be able to connect to the servers that are powered on! You can get generator solutions to power whole buildings for a reasonable price if your going to do it!

 

The key thing is safe shutdown of servers. It's also helpful for that inevitable situation where someone has forgotten to save a switch config.

 

Many of us also have phones run + powered over the network, so its important that these run - even for a little while.

 

Also mobile devices have batteries, so could continue to work if the wifi is up. If we move servers to the cloud, keeping switches + wifi up and running for a decent amount of time isn't too hard or expensive compared to the cost of lost lesson/admin time.

 

This is all much easier in newer buildings with large centralised racks where you can cover a lot with 1 or 2 UPSs. With lots of little data cabs like many of us have this is more tricky.

[mavhc]

When specifying there's 2 things to account for 1. Total output power, that can't be increased, and 2. Total energy, can be increased by chaining batteries if the UPS supports that.

 

You can probably add more batteries later, but not more power