I’m running a rather small homelab and am hunting for a good UPS to help keep everything running smoothly. My top priorities are:

  • Just enough battery life to keep things running until they can be shut down
  • Compatible with open source software for monitoring and automated shutdown

Would I have better luck getting a used one and a new battery, or a brand new unit altogether? Anyone have one they don’t need anymore, on that note? 👀

Thanks for the advice!

  • IsoKieroEnglish
    4·
    3 days ago

    “Enough battery life” is a bit wide requirement. What you’re running from that?

    Most of the ‘big brands’ (eaton, apc…) work just fine with linux/open source, but specially low end consumer models even from big players might not and not all of them have any kind of port for data transfer at all.

    Personally I’d say that if you’re looking for something smaller than 1000VA just get a brand new one. Bigger than those might be worth to buy used and just replace batteries, but that varies a lot. I’ve got few dirt cheap units around which apprently fried their charging circuit when the original battery died, so they’re e-waste now and on the other hand I have 1500VA cheap(ish) FSP which is running on 3rd or 4th set of batteries, so there’s not a definitive answer on what to get.