UPS Power Settings

[gondola]

   

I have an APC SUA1000XL attached to a Terastation Pro II via

an APC  940-0024C serial cable.  

 

I wish to select the option 'Shutdown TeraStation when UPS report "Battery Low" Status',

but this option is not selectable.

 

The other option: "Shutdown TeraStation after {5,30,60} seconds of Power Failure" is enabled, but

is simply far too short time interval to be useful.  (My users have very slow reaction times).

 

Is there some common error, or other configuration required to enable the option to shutdown the

TeraStation when the UPS reports "battery low"?

 

Failing that, is there any way to lengthen the shutdown time to 5, 30 or 60 minutes, and not seconds?

 

[Paul]

here is a link with supported UPS

 

http://forums.buffalotech.com/buffalo/board/message?board.id=0101&message.id=89&query.id=2281#M89

[johnnybeta]

   

I have the same problem with my TS pro II RM (TS-RH1.0TGL/R5) and my new APC smart-UPS (DLA1500RMI2U [my understanding is that DLA is Dell-speak for SUA]), connected with the APC-supplied serial cable.  

 

According to the list of compatible UPS from Paul - the TS pro II should be compatible with all APC smart UPS, so why is the option to "Shutdown TeraStation when UPS Reports "Battery Low" status" option greyed out ?   The reason I bought this UPS rather than a cheaper one was the longer battery runtime - if I'm limited to the terastation shutting down after only 60 seconds, I've just spent rather more than I needed to on a UPS.

 

(I do note that I ordered a APC SUA1500.., but have been supplied with a DLA1500... is this a possible source of the limitation, although as far as i can tell from the specifications both versions are identical).

[Dustrega]

The TeraStation UPS limitation is that so the NAS does not lose power and has an adequate amount of time to properly shut down. Otherwise, if the NAS were to suddenly lose power a RAID check would have to be performed upon the next start up. In my opinion there should be an option to change how long the NAS will stay active upon a received problem signal from the UPS, however this is not the case. I believe that the idea is that if a file transfer is taking place then the NAS will shut down (of course corrupting that data) but not put the RAID at risk. Hope this clarifies a bit.

[johnnybeta]

   

Thanks Dustrega

 

I can see the point - having had various, very time consuming to resolve, problems with corrupted RAIDs caused by powercuts I'm more interested in preserving my RAID than continuing working a bit longer.   That being said, I agree there should be the option to set the time before automatic shutdown beyond 60sec, especially when there is the tantalising, but unavailable, option to shutdown on receiving a low battery warning from the UPS, which in the case of my UPS ought to give me a good hour or two.

[daoswald]

   cascade your ups's.  Attach a smallish one to the Terastation, and then plug the small UPS into a larger one that is unmanaged.  When the larger one fades after a couple hours, the smaller one kicks in, and shuts down the tera.

[johnnybeta]

   

Thanks daoswald, that's a neat idea - I wish I'd had it.

[daoswald]

   

You're welcome.  The other advantage to this is redundancy, of course.  You may find that 99% of the outtages turn out to not be long enough duration to burn through all the stage one UPS's power.  But that 1% of the time, after stage one runs down stage two will take over, and since it's plugged into the TS, it will shut your unit down for you. 

 

I know in my neighborhood I've found that in the past two years I've never had an outtage last long enough to even chew through the first UPS.  Since I have a LinkStation Live, which doesn't support managed UPS's, I haven't tried the two stage approach, but there's nothing preventing it from working if I had a LS that supports managed UPS's.