❓ What UPS will you be using with your new Mac Studio? ❓

[MisterSavage]

Dear experts, I do need your advice badly on what UPS to employ with my modest system:

1. Mac Studio (Max power consumption 215 W)
2. ThunderBay Flex 8 DASD (Total Wattage 500 W)
3. Studio Display (Power consumption 31 W)
4. Modem (not sure, but should be not too much, I would guess)
5. Telephone adapter (low power usage, I think)
6. A few USB drives

The UPS will be configured to properly shutdown the above equipment if the power has been out for over 5 minutes. We usually have several power outages a year as well as a few brown-outs, most lasting less than 10 minutes, but the duration of the outage is not critical, IMHO: of main concern would be transient spikes caused by power grid shutdown and startup.
I've heard that the power coming out of a UPS is hugely noisy, and NOT the “pure” sine-wave. I'd imagine that's true while it's running off battery but not sure how bad it is when it's not…

What UPS would you, dear experts, recommend for my use case, please? Would the CyberPower Smart App Sinewave PR1500LCD be suitable, for example❓

Please chime in!

This is what I bought.

Tripp Lite 900VA UPS Battery Backup Surge Protector ENERGY-STAR Certified 12-Outlet Uninterruptible Power Supply, USB Charging, Dataline Protection, 3-Year Warranty & $100,000 Insurance (ECO900LCDU2)

Tripp Lite 900VA UPS Battery Backup Surge Protector ENERGY-STAR Certified 12-Outlet Uninterruptible Power Supply, USB Charging, Dataline Protection, 3-Year Warranty & $100,000 Insurance (ECO900LCDU2)

smile.amazon.com

It was of monumental importance to me that it was not one that continued to make a loud beep when power was lost.

 

[MarkC426]

What UPS would you, dear experts, recommend for my use case, please? Would the CyberPower Smart App Sinewave PR1500LCD be suitable, for example❓

Not heard (or can find this model....?).
I have CP1500EPFCLCD model, which is great.
It is silent in normal use.

 

[InquiringMac]

Thank you very kindly, dear experts!

Not heard (or can find this model....?).

This is what I was referring to.

I have the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD (1500 VA / 1000 Watts Pure Sine Wave UPS)...

Could somebody please help me understand what the differences between the CP1500PFCLCD and PR1500LCD are? Which SKU would serve me better? Both are "Pure Sine Wave", both are 1500 VA...❓

 

[jerryk]

I am using a CyberPower PFCLCD850. It supports my Studio, Windows Box, and 3 monitors. I have separate units for other computers, DVRs, and NASes.

The house has a Tesla Solarroof and 2 Powerwalls so usually has power without the grid, sometime for days. However, when the power goes out sometimes it surges back and forth for a few seconds and the UPS isolates and powers all the gear while that surging occurs. Also, when the grid is off and the solar fills the batteries, the Powerwall shuts down solar production by raising the home frequency to 61.5-62 Hz which is outside the operational range of the inverters. The UPS sees this as something is wrong in the grid and takes over for a few moments until the Powerwall can get everything shutdown and drops back to 60 Hz.

The net effect is the computers, TVs, networking, and other gear all stay up even in a multi-day power outage. And that means we can do the work we get paid for even if the grid is down for an extended period.

 

[MarkC426]

Could somebody please help me understand what the differences between the CP1500PFCLCD and PR1500LCD are? Which SKU would serve me better? Both are "Pure Sine Wave", both are 1500 VA...❓

The PR1500LCD appears to be 1500w, wheras the CP1500PFCLCD is 1000w.
The PR seems to be a more high end version, which is 2x the price.

 

[InquiringMac]

What an eye-opener: I used to believe VA = W... Silly old me!
Looks like with so much invested the PR is the way to go. Thank you very kindly, dear experts!

 

[DPUser]

Would the CyberPower Smart App Sinewave PR1500LCD be suitable, for example❓

Please chime in!

I've been using a Cyberpower for several years, long enough to do a battery change a couple of times, without issue. Used it to run my Cheesegrater; should be enough to handle all your gear for the required 5 minutes.

CyberPower 1500VA / 900Watts True Sine Wave Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)

CyberPower 1500VA / 900Watts True Sine Wave Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)

www.costco.com

Costco has a very good price on these, exactly what I own, which has been replaced in most retail outlets with the LCD model.

 

[siddhartha]

I just purchased a new one when my CyberPower 1000AVR recently quit after a brief power surge. Gave a long-tone error, and wouldn't come back. It was only about 16 years old.....
Set up the new one, and then looked into replacing the battery on the CyberPower. Cheap, and readily available, so I did that. Works better than it did on day 1. The CyberPower now protects my media server in the basement, a core I7 upgraded/hacked 2011 iMac. Gives an 18-minute run-time, way more than I need 99% of the time. (mostly brief brown-outs in my neighborhood, like 2-3 in a row lasting about 30-secs to a minute)
Just a testament to CyberPower, that this way-past expiration date UPS continues to work perfectly, and software still supports it.

 

[haralds]

I have several of these: Tripp Lite SMART1500LCDT 1500VA 900W UPS Battery Back Up
They work, allow a variety of readouts, and when one set of batteries did not quite make the warranty period, they sent a replacement without trouble at all. Used it for my cMPRO; it's overkill now. Just plugs into the Macs to turn shut them down. I also have one on my AV system with console stack.

I have a smaller CyberPower for my Synology NAS DS1520+ with DX-517. I have it shut down within a few minutes, if I am not starting my generator in time.

We live in a rural section of the SF Bay Area with a lot of power-offs summer and winter.

 

[jasoncarle]

This one.

APC Back-UPS Pro, 1500VA/900W, Tower, 120V, 10x NEMA 5-15R outlets, AVR, USB Type A + C ports, LCD, User Replaceable Battery - BR1500MS2 | APC USA

BR1500MS2 - APC Back-UPS Pro, 1500VA/900W, Tower, 120V, 10x NEMA 5-15R outlets, AVR, USB Type A + C ports, LCD, User Replaceable Battery | APC USA

www.apc.com

 

[InquiringMac]

Dear experts,

Could you please help me understand what the most significant differences between Eaton 5PX1500RTG2 and CyberPower PR1500RT2U are❓

There is a significant difference in price, but what about provided functionality, reliability, serviceability, support, etc.❓

Please chime in!

 

[haralds]

Since I revived my cMP 5,1 as a backup workstation running Monterey with OCLP, I moved my TrippLite Smart to it and bought a CyberPower ED650LCD for my Mac Studio.

• Actual power consumption running for Studio Mac and Monitor average 30-40W. UPS peripherals add another 15W.
• Projected runtime on battery is about 45min.
• The ECO function for peripherals rarely seems to trigger, since the Studio is an insomniac. This looks like mainly TimeMachine, which I need to look at taming. Sleeping the Studio actually runs about 5W, the Studio monitor 12W for combined < 20W.

The CyberPower hardware is ok. The 650 looks very adequate unless you want to run extended times on battery. In my case, we switch to generator for power failures. The nice part is that you can set the trigger voltage (low and high) to switch to battery. I have an older CyberPower that works nicely on generator. The TrippLite is overanxious to switch to battery and easily runs out of it during longer duration outages. We live in the CA Santa Cruz mountains and might have multi-day outages.

The PowerPanel software is a pile of crap. An unsigned and unnotarized cross-platform hodgepodge of Java, Python, and bash scripts with Qt interface, it failed to load the daemon after installation barricaded by not triggering the Background Privacy interaction. I tried installing and uninstalling it multiple times until I fixed it by loading it via the command line. The installed bundle features an empty Frameworks folder plus ALL OF THE WINDOWS EXECUTABLES AND DLLS in a MacOS/bin folder. The Qt libraries seem to include the complete set rather than only the ones actually used by the app. If this were delivered by one of my engineers, they would have been severely chastised.

The daemon (named daemon, so you don't know what it belongs to in Activity Monitor) hogs 1.2% CPU and 120MB of RAM. Of course, it is not Universal, etc., etc. PowerPanel is not needed for day-to-day functions, since the Energy Settings are totally adequate. But the software is nice to set thresholds, beep control, and so on. I ended up building scripts to load and unload it on demand and only use it when needed. I did not want that daemon clogging my system.

Since all of the UPSes use a standard HID interface, I was surprised to see there were no nicely implemented native general UPS apps for macOS for the extended features of a range of UPSes. CyberPower, a $7.8B company, could do better. If I remember, the APC app was not any better.

 

[Stow]

My favorite 'consumer grade' UPS:

Tripp Lite SMART1500LCDT 1500VA 900W UPS Battery Back Up, AVR, LCD Display, Line-Interactive, 10 Outlets, 120V, USB, Tel & Coax Protection, 3 Year Warranty & Dollar 250,000 Insurance Black

The SMART1500LCDT SmartPro LCD 120V, 1500VA/900W Line-Interactive Uninterruptible Power Supply provides battery backup and AC power protection against blackouts, brownouts, power surges and line noise that can damage electronics or destroy data. Ideal for backing up your desktop computer or audio...

www.amazon.com

I'm using this one and have had zero issues

 

[Stow]

Is it worth going from a Tripp Lite Smart UPS LCD 1500VA to a CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD for sine wave with a mac studio?

 

[edubfromktown]

The APC 600 BackUPS that came with a Sun Ultra purchased ~1998 does not have enough mojo to keep my Studio Base Max alive even for brief power blips (even with a fresh battery replacement). I sprang for a 1500 VA / 900w Backups tower model.

This is where an M1/2 Mini may not be so bad, depending on your workloads

 

[Stow]

I plugged my make studio into my ups and under energy saver it has put disk to sleep when possible. It has an SSD so I doubt it will do anything but do you guys turn that off or just leave it on by default?

 

[furmonster]

I use an old Powerwalker 650VA unit which used to run my Mac Mini. Had it years, replaced the battery for $25 a few months ago.

It seems happy with the Studio and all the "mission critical" stuff like DSL router, Wifi hub, 6-port ethernet switch on it.

It won't achieve much runtime if the Studio CPUs are being used hard, but its purpose in life is just to prevent the occasional 5-second power outage from causing everything to reboot.

 

[romanof]

Because our rural power is apparently generated by squirrel cage and delivered over the barbed wire fences along the roads, for myself a UPS is just as important a purchase as the system. I have two APCs and a Cyberpower (1000w + each) from which I have removed the batteries and have connected each to their own huge deep cycle marine battery (actually, two each since the UPSs are 24V). Not only does that give me protection from the very frequent blips but also hours and hours of uptime if needed. Actually, I can run for days if I am careful, since my router, M1 mini and M1 studio take very little juice. The XDR display is the hog and for extended outages I switch to a smaller ordinary monitor. The only downside is that the UPSs will take a long time to completely recharge if they are run way down.

 

[lsquare]

I don't know what the power draw is for a Mac Studio with a M2 Ultra. I don't need a huge capacity. Just something that can power the Mac Studio for 10-15 minutes to finish up stuff before safely shutting it down.

I have my eyes on this at the moment.

CST150UC-FC

A mini-tower UPS with line interactive topology, the CyberPower CST150UC-FC provides battery backup (using simulated sine wave output) and surge protection for desktop computers, workstations, networking equipment, smart home devices, and home entertainment systems. The CST150UC-FC uses...

www.cyberpowersystems.com

This UPS has a simulated sine wave. I'm not sure if it's necessary to spend the extra money on a true sine wave ups. Even then, with this UPS, what’s the battery life going to be like? If not this, which UPS will fit my needs?

 

[lsquare]

It will work with the built in features of OSX which basically just will shut down the Mac in the event of a power loss. I am wanting actual software that will do event logging and notifications, and firmware updates. APC's software doesn't support the Mac so I will be switching to Cyberpower. It's a shame because I've always bought and used APC products, and I loved their Power Chute software when I had a pc.

How do I configure it to do that when the Mac is plugged into the CyberPower?

 

[arw]

How do I configure it to do that when the Mac is plugged into the CyberPower?

Set when your Mac shuts down while using a UPS

If your Mac desktop computer uses an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), you may be able to set how long the Mac runs on the UPS before shutting down.

support.apple.com

 

[lsquare]

Set when your Mac shuts down while using a UPS

If your Mac desktop computer uses an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), you may be able to set how long the Mac runs on the UPS before shutting down.

support.apple.com

I'm trying to figure out how this works. So besides connecting the power cord from the Mac to the UPS, I'll also have to connect the Mac to the UPS with a USB cable? Then the Mac can automatically figure out how long it can run from the UPS before automatically shutting down? Is the UPS able to communicate to the Mac what the run time is based on the power draw?

 

[arw]

So besides connecting the power cord from the Mac to the UPS, I'll also have to connect the Mac to the UPS with a USB cable?

Yes.

Is the UPS able to communicate to the Mac what the run time is based on the power draw?

Yes. Besides the power draw, the UPS knows its battery capacity and current state of charge (which is also forwarded to the Mac).
Depending on the UPS and version of macOS different shutdown options can be set if the power goes down:
1. Shut down after X minutes.
2. Shut down when battery charge drops below X percent.
3 Shut down if the remaining runtime battery drops below X minutes.

 

[lsquare]

Yes.

Yes. Besides the power draw, the UPS knows its battery capacity and current state of charge (which is also forwarded to the Mac).
Depending on the UPS and version of macOS different shutdown options can be set if the power goes down:
1. Shut down after X minutes.
2. Shut down when battery charge drops below X percent.
3 Shut down if the remaining runtime battery drops below X minutes.

How do I figure what capacity I need to run a Mac Studio with a M2 Ultra for 10-15 minutes?

 

[arw]

How do I figure what capacity I need to run a Mac Studio with a M2 Ultra for 10-15 minutes?

I don't own a Mac Studio so I'm just speaking theoretically how to proceed:
According to Apple, a maxed out Mac Studio with a M2 Ultra can draw a maximum of 295 W (Which is the absolut max and not a usual use case). I suspect less than 100 W are more realistic.
Then add the power consumption of your display (depends on the exact model but probably ~75 W).
Add other important peripherals you have (like an HDD enclosure with external power supply).
Let's say you usually use 200 W total.
But 400 W are the theoretical maximum of all components together, so that is the mimium power the UPS must be able to provide to prevent a crash.
For UPS' (as for other electrical loads), the more common descriptor is not Watt but Volt Ampere (VA).
Looking at CyberPower's Sinewave series, the smallest model is 850 VA (500 W) CP850PFCLCD.
500 W is more than your 400 W, so that's fine.

CP850PFCLCD

A mini-tower UPS with line interactive topology, the CyberPower PFC Sinewave CP850PFCLCD provides battery backup (using sine wave output) and surge protection for desktop computers, workstations, networking devices, and home entertainment systems requiring active PFC power source compatibility...

www.cyberpowersystems.com

Then you can dynamically move the mouse around the #Runtime graph of the model in question and check if the runtime at ~200 W load is sufficient for you.
If you want a longer runtime, you have to pick a larger UPS.