UPS for Your Synology or QNAP NAS - 8 Things You Need to Know & Recommend UPS' to Buy

Recommended UPS for Different Synology or QNAP NAS Setups:

The popularity of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) has risen significantly in recent years. Not just for businesses, but for home users as well, who often have limited power setups such as houseboats, pop-up offices, and mobile homes. The value of having a safety net for your power-consuming devices is undeniable. Additionally, for those whose data is critical and whose business or personal life relies on constant access and read/write operations, a UPS can provide peace of mind. In the past, power failure solutions were only accessible to large enterprises and high-level businesses, with prices starting in the five figures. However, with the rise of network-attached storage (NAS) in homes and the increased efficiency of mass production techniques, owning a UPS device to protect data in both homes and businesses has become more affordable.

Video Chapters
00:00 - The Start
00:24 - Who is this UPS and NAS Video for?
01:01 - Why would you need a UPS?
02:16 - Selecting a UPS is much easier now as VA and Watts are published
03:35 - There is a difference between PSU power and power use
05:42 - Make Sure You have EXTRA POWER for Time
08:16 - UPS Power ratings and the hardware/software features do not always scale
10:18 - There is more to a UPS than just power cuts
13:32 - UPS Batteries CAN be expensive!
16:14 - Sometimes a BIGGER UPS works out Better and Cheaper
18:42 - Two UPS' versus One UPS
21:33 - Many, MANY more UPS Brands now
22:50 - Recommended UPS' for Synology, QNAP, Terramaster and Asustor NAS
23:24 - Recommended UPS for 1-Bay and 2-Bay NAS
25:21 - Recommended UPS for 4-Bay and 6-Bay NAS
28:10 - Recommended UPS for 8-Bay and 12-Bay NAS

[linuxkidd]

Just coming across the video, and you cover a lot of great info. The one point I didn't see covered is this:
- The VA / Watt rating is only the output capacity of the inverter, NOT the battery capacity
- The battery capacity is very difficult to find, but if you dig enough, you can find something like:
Battery Size: 12V/9Ah

To get the 100% efficient estimated run time, you would multiply the V by Ah, to get Watt Hours, then divide by your load:
12 v * 9 Ah = 108 Watt Hours

This means, that while a 1500 VA / 1000 W CyperPower PFC can run 1000 watts of output, the run time will be VERY low:
108 Watt Hours / 1000 Watts = 0.108 Hours ( or 6.48 minutes )

However, this value is for a 100% efficient inverter, which doesn't exist. Looking further into the CP1500PFC specs, it does list the run time:
At full load: only 2.5 minutes!
At half load ( 500 watts / 750 VA ): 10 minutes.

While the capacity does commonly track a bit to the VA/Watt rating, a higher VA/W rating does not always mean higher Battery Capacity. Dig deep into the specs, and figure out your estimated run time to prevent serious disappointment, and buy the right run-time, the first time.


If you want more geekery on the difference between VA and Watts, do a search for 'power factor' or 'apparent power' and 'reactive power'.

Hope this helps someone :)

[US_Joe]

I run 3 APC 1500's. One for the NAS, An ext drive for NAS backup, Modem, Router & Switch. One for the PC while supporting external drives & fans. One for my Desktop employing the monitor, desklamps, and, minor accessories such as phone chargers. All are managed and monitored via software. This balances a Net result of about 3 hours of total high power usage. Smaller items can be taken offline, such as desklamps, external drives, etc. thereby increasing the time. One time I had a power failure and didn't even know it until I went to the fridge. All 3 switched with absolutely no delay or hiccups. Lovin' it !

[ilink]

I just had a power trip yesterday and I’m looking through UPS, now I see your video. Thanks.

[rpsantos]

Perfect!
My fully loaded DS923+ just arrived and I was researching for the last two days for a good UPS. Very informative. Thanks!

[brianhansen]

You did another video about 6 months to a year ago that I saw shortly after I bought a ups only to find out it wasn’t on the Synology tested and list. I appreciate the work you do and if I had looked for videos first I wouldn’t have an incompatibility issue. I only looked for videos afterwards because I was having issues with my Synology recognizing how much battery remains. I don’t have the option to let it run till the battery is low and shut down cuz it thinks the battery is low after like an hour when I have over half left according to the display on the ups. So I just set it to shut down after 30 mins and then restart after power comes back online. Thankfully that part works well. After all there’s no reason I really need to run my nas for an extended period on battery. The primary reason I bought a ups was to protect it from data loss in a power outage. So as long as I have enough power to shutdown properly I’m happy.

[wfp]

I used APC for what seems to be two decades for large scale events, office and home use as they were the only game in town. However service was not good in my country so when something went wrong you basically had to buy a new one. Also trying to work out what the various beeps meant when something went wrong, or muting it, was simply arcane. Switched 3 years ago to using Cyber power with a visual display. WOW. I am in love. Had to replace one under warranty and it was a simple exchange. Also, a tip I don't see covered here yet, is that you only need the UPS to communicate with ONE of your Synology's as the others that are connected to the same UPS on the same network, are able to be set up to use your main Synology to tell them when the power is down, and then shut down easily. So I have some old dumb UPS units that will see out their lives being a simple battery with out them communicating to their respective devices as the main Cyperpower is able to do so via my main Synology. I wish the Windows Servers I used to use were this intelligent.

[PK.]

EXTREMELY HELPFUL! I needed this as I am looking for a PSU to help preserve my NAS in the case of a high volt situation (I had one and it destroyed my previous APC PSU but it saved my PC, TV).

[sw]

Very good video. However I wouldn't bother facroring in or connecting a laptop into a UPS as they come with one built in..

[LSUEngineer]

Robbie, Thanks again for good overall info & at 23 min mark specific UPS ideas for different size NAS, PC, etc. Also at 20 min mark the concept of having multiple UPS units is good advice, too.

[geodudereal]

Your channel is just so darn good. Thank you so much

[InspectorGadget]

Nice video, very informative again!
PS: I would recommend to put the text in-between segments a wee bit longer please, I often have to rewind and pause to read..
I noticed that indeed often only the VA-value is provided and I think/believe because those UPS have a selectable(!) output-voltage? (irrespective from the input line-voltage) Plus you will need the V and A values for your wiring, circuit-breakers and such. And not forgetting power factor/reactive loads etc.
BTW., if you do not have enough plug-points, some UPS manufacturers do have "special" UPS Power Strips. Of course always do pay attention to the ratings!
Very, very important note: If you go for a UPS, pay attention if it supports SNMP out of the box or you need a (smart) optional network-controller. (= additional costs) Nowadays many UPS do have an ethernet-connection out of the box but that is often cloud-based only (yeah, go figure) and not for your local network integration unless you use their own App.

[covvy]

Amazing, a UPS for NAS guide one month after I bought a UPS

[zhengyuan]

Thank you for your video and it is very insightful. I would like share my experience in using UPS to protect my NAS and get your comments as well. My overall experience in using UPS to protect NAS in a home is not very positive. I had a bad experience on power trip before. So I bought an APC EasyUPS BVX700LUI-MS UPS to protect my Synology DS210J, 2-Bay NAS drive. I thought this is no brain things, since my NAS power consumption is very low, I bought a cheapest APC UPS I could find 3 years ago. After 3 years, I had number of the issues/observations with this UPS -- 1) It is running very hot. my unit consumes about 18W of power, with no load and fully charged battery. There are 3 types of UPS -- standby, line-interactive and online. Except standby, they all have active electronic circuit running constantly, to generate a lot of heat. My unit is line-interactive type to protect over and under voltage of the AC power. I am not sure whether it is necessary, as my Synology's power supply can accept AC voltage from 110V to 240V. 2) UPS battery life is shorter than you expected. My unit has battery life 2~3 years in its datasheet, and replacement of lead-acid battery might not be as cheap as you think. My UPS unit's replacement battery (APCRBC110) cost about $100 in Amazon, more than the price I paid for the entire new APC UPS BVX700LUI-MS! Given a such short life, your UPS runtime may not be what you think as you measured with a fresh, new battery. After one or two years, your battery may be on the way of dying, your runtime can get shorter and shorter over the course of 3~5 years time. 3) cheaper UPS is not always consumer friendly, besides total cost of the ownership, (battery replacement, higher power consumption etc). It usually uses a LED and sound to tell you the status of your UPS. in the case of my UPS unit, it emits a very loud, constant sound when the battery is detected to be dead. It could be very annoying when you place it at home, especially if this happens in the middle of night. My unit is supposed to to battery test every 14 days. 4) The UPS may fail to detect a dead battery when the load is too low. My house had a power trip few days ago and the UPS immediately cut off all prower, provided almost zero backup time. I had a dead battery inside without any advanced warning. I did further investigation, and realized that it is because the load of my UPS is simply too low -- one 2-bay Synology drive with one HDD installed, one Buffalo NAS with two HDD, a network switch, a Wi-fi router with a 700VA/360W UPS! I tested my UPS with a 60W light bulb as load, it immediately give me a warning message when I turned the unit on. My APC UPS clearly lacks of more sophisticated method to detect the end life of a battery. 5) lastly, if you are using UPS at home to protect your NAS, without a business-like setting, such like data center, operators and tools to monitor equipment 24x7, then you'd better to buy a UPS with a communication interface directly connected to your UPS, and it can shut down your NAS automatically during AC power outage, after a predefined time. Because for the home use, you may not always at home when power outage happens. Although this does not happen to me yet, I am still very much regretted not buy one with the built-in communication interface. Overall, I don't think the current UPS products in the market are friendly to the average consumers for home uses. APC website provides a plenty of the information on their products, but others are not. You may only get to know whether they are good or not after you actually buy and use them for a while.

[bikerchrisukk]

Good one 👍I've got 1 upright 600VA/360W Riello UPS covering 3 light weight servers and network gear (wifi using PoE). One is primary and if there's a power cut, it'll tell 2 of the servers to turn off, before turning itself off. Smart! Most of the time it's running at 30% usage (1 server+network gear), when everything is on it runs at 80%, but that's rare (once every 2 weeks perhaps).

[DavidM]

An observation from personal experience: Where I live, we experience a power outage only once every several years so I have been rather lax about buying a UPS. Well, we had a power outage due to a house fire in the neighbourhood. When the power came back on, the Synology ran as if nothing at all happened. On the other hand, the QNAP had several corrupted apps. They appeared to be still installed but would not run. And could not be uninstalled. I had to go the the App Center, download the apps, and then reinstall them.

[numlockkilla]

Surge current can trip a ups on transfer so remember 30 percent over maximum draw and you will be safe. Experience pays.

[jirimondo]

When will the backup UPS guys get smart and sell a high capacity DC UPS? One that can support 12V and 19V outputs so we're not charging DC batteries and then converting it back to AC just to power DC devices???

[robmay]

Thanks for the very thorough and useful info. One question I would love to see covered is how to use 1 UPS for multiple NAS devices and have them all able to communicate with the UPS for power management features? Let's say I have 3 synology NAS devices and 1 UPS, can I connect all 3 via USB hub or is there a different/better/proper way to set this up?

[Dextermorga]

I have 3 APCs home and I couldn't be happier. The only thing that I think needs improving is the ancient windows application.

[keesmaassen]

You also should look at the power - time graphic where you can find out how long a UPS can deliver the power you need continiously. I always use a time from 10 till 15 min for the needed power.
I even can tell you there are Brands who can deliverr a lot of power, BUT only for less then a few minutes !
To find out how many Power (Watts) you use continiously, there are small wallsocket devices you can buy to measure the power you use for 1 or more devices from 0ne wallsockett.