Need UPS Backup. How many watts for MacPro?

[clank72]

I have a 2008 MacPro running 3 Velociraptors. I moved to Oregon and occasionally we have power glitches here which kills the computer power. I've lost some work over it too.

I'm seriously thinking about getting a UPS Power backup. But how many watts is appropriate for this Mac on a dedicated circuit?


Thanks

 

[derbothaus]

I guess get a bit more than your rated PSU. 2010's are 1000W. Not sure of the 2008's.

 

[clank72]

Oh wow, thats going to be pricey then. OK.

 

[wonderspark]

I found an APS Smart-UPS 1500 (SUA1500) for $25 on craigslist. It runs a 2009 Mac Pro with an 8-bay external RAID for about 40 minutes before giving up.

 

[toxic]

how much power you need depends on how long you want it to run on battery, and how much power it draws while you're doing it. at idle it's probably not more than 200W, beyond that it depends on what you've put in it and how much stuff you're doing.

 

[clank72]

I would like it to at least last 3-4 minutes.

 

[clank72]

Thanks guys. I went down and got the APC 600 watt.

 

[ChuckBlack]

Thanks guys. I went down and got the APC 600 watt.

Ya, I have the 650 and it's great. Plenty of time to shut down my mac in case of a power failure. If you plug it into a USB port and open up the Energy Saver System Prefs you can configure your mac to be sure it shuts down before your MacPro runs out the battery on the APC.

 

[clank72]

Ya, I have the 650 and it's great. Plenty of time to shut down my mac in case of a power failure. If you plug it into a USB port and open up the Energy Saver System Prefs you can configure your mac to be sure it shuts down before your MacPro runs out the battery on the APC.

Sweet. So I do't need their software? I checked their website and all Windows stuff. I guess I should of known it "just works" with my Mac.

I'll try and hook that up now.

BTW. Just got it working. Only using one bar of load power. Cool little LCD display. Very quiet too!

 

[absolut_mac]

After reading quite of the reviews on Amazon, I got this one very reasonably priced from them.....

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000RZPK1W

The CyberPower CP850AVRLCD will run for approx 7 minutes at half load. Output is a clean filtered 60Hz sine wave, and the AVR will smooth out voltage peaks and brown outs without the battery pack kicking in. Keep in mind that the actual run time will depend on the wattage drain of the equipment hooked up.

With my 2009 Mac Mini and a Dell 20" LCD display, the CyberPower panel showed that it would run for about 50 minutes after I disconnected it from the wall outlet in order to test the actual run time. That was overly optimistic, as it only kept going for 30 minutes just web surfing and nothing overly intensive until it shut down. Still, that's plenty of time to complete what you're doing and shut everything down.

Here's more info from their web site....

http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/ups-systems/intelligent-lcd-ups/CP850AVRLCD.html

 

[yomibro]

I got myself a 1350AVRLCD the year I got my MacPro, I plug the MacPro, 2707 monitor and ReadyNAS DUO in it. When I used to have the 4870 it gave me around 7 minutes of backup time, I have since upgraded to a 6870 but I don't really expect that time to change that much if at all.

Come to think of it maybe it's time for me to do another test, the last time I did that was almost 2 years ago.

 

[johnnymg]

Sweet. So I do't need their software? I checked their website and all Windows stuff. I guess I should of known it "just works" with my Mac.

I'll try and hook that up now.

BTW. Just got it working. Only using one bar of load power. Cool little LCD display. Very quiet too!

Unplug the AC and verify your MP PS isn't buzzing. If it is, take the UPS back.

JohnG

 

[clank72]

Is unplugging the UPS from the wall a good way to test it? Seems like that would be the same as a power outage.

 

[hfg]

You may also want to put your Mac Pro into the sleep mode, then wake it up to test the UPS. There is apparently a considerable power surge on wake-up which will trip the shut-down on some otherwise adequate UPS power supplies.

I had that experience with several I tried, and others reported it as well which can probably be found with a little searching here.

I ended up using a APC "Smart-UPS 1500" which has worked flawlessly for several years now.


-howard

 

[absolut_mac]

Is unplugging the UPS from the wall a good way to test it? Seems like that would be the same as a power outage.

That's exactly how I tested mine. You could use a power strip with a switch and just switch it off.

Keep in mind that the display of time remaining before the battery runs down is overly optimistic. Immediately upon unplugging it displayed a run time of 50 minutes, versus an actual run time of about 30 minutes. It switched off about 2 to 3 minutes after the display showed 15 minutes remaining!!!

Also keep in mind that your Mac Pro uses a lot more power than my Mini.