jacobson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (R J Jacobson) (01/04/91)
I am looking at the American Power Conversion UPS (uninteruptable power supply) for my BBS. The software is called PowerChute for Appleshare (also by American Power conversion). The cost for this software and hardware would be $290 from MacWarehouse. I have asked for literature from them about the hardware and software. The software blurb in the catalog says " PowerChute for AppleShare. Automatically shuts down your AppleShare network when the power fails. It communicates with a signaling American Power Conversion UPS (such as the 110SE or 370ci). When power fails it alerts all users and initiates a graceful shutdown of the network. It uses a piggyback cable so it does not need its own localtalk connector." I have a question about this software whether it would work with just the BBS machine attached to it, but it sounds like it would. Anyone familiar with this software/hardware? Or any other that does the same thing. I would like to have a UPS with software that would shutdown the BBS software then the hardware and leave it down til I get back. I am concerned about what power failures/surges can do to the Hard drive and especially the CD ROM. When I have tested the CD ROM with a fake power loss the hard drive reboots when power comes back (after closing opened files etc) but then it tries to mount the 3 partitions on the CD ROM disk I have chosen and the system hangs. I am concerned about what this would do if I were gone for a week, as well as the possibility of my drive getting fried in a lightning strike. If anyone has used this software with the 110SE UPS I would like to know if it does what I want. If not, do you have a suggestion of what hardware software would do that? I know that a number of UPS hardware/software packages exist for the MS-DOS world. But this seems to be the only one I can find for the Mac world. Are there others that would do what I want? Please respond by email. Thanks much!!!!! BITNET jacobson@uiucux1 ARPANET jacobson%uiucux1@a.cs.uiuc.edu CSNET jacobson%uiucux1@uiuc.csnet USENET [ihnp4,pur-ee,convex]uiucdcs!uiucuxc!uiucux1!jacobson Russ Jacobson Illinois Geological Survey Champaign, IL 61820 217-244-2425
tj@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Tom Johnson) (01/04/91)
In article <1991Jan3.201116.3056@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> jacobson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (R J Jacobson) writes: > >I am looking at the American Power Conversion UPS (uninteruptable power >supply) for my BBS. The software is <stuff deleted about MacWarehouse and description of PowerChute> >connector." I have a question about this software whether it would work >with just the BBS machine attached to it, but it sounds like it would. >Anyone familiar with this software/hardware? Or any other that does the >same thing. I would like to have a UPS with software that would shutdown >the BBS software then the hardware and leave it down til I get back. I am > > >Russ Jacobson >Illinois Geological Survey >Champaign, IL 61820 >217-244-2425 We recently purchased a couple of APC UPSs. We bought the larger models-- 520ESs. The numbers tell the story. The 110 provide 100 Volt-Amps, the 370ci provides 370 VA and the 520 provides 520 VA. The 110SE is designed to be visually compatible with the compact mac line--platinum color, zero footprint, etc... The 370ci provides more power for the Mac II series computers and has a few more bells and whistles (indicator lights and such). It is designed to sit under the monitor. They sell a bunch of other models too. 200, 360, 450, 800, 1200VA plus 750 and 1500VA online systems. The 520, 800, 1200, the 110SE, the 370ci and both of the online systems have the network interface. The network interface is simply a DB-9 serial connector: pin 1 Control input--lo-to-hi shuts down UPS pin 2 RS232 line fell signal--lo-to-hi signals failure pin 3 closed = line fail pin 4 switch com pin 5 closed = low batter pin 6-8 unused pin 9 ground The PowerChute software simply monitors pin 3. When it detects it is closed, it starts posting events to shutdown AppleShare. Unfortunately that is the only software it works with. I've written my own code which basically does the same thing, but instead of posting events it triggers off a QuickKeys 2.0 sequence, which can do just about anything. We use this since we are protecting mail servers and have other applications running in the foreground of AppleShare, so PowerChute won't work for us. My hardware co-worker is building the hardware part of the interface to control several machines (instead of one per UPS), and to automatically restart the machines when the power has come back up. My informal test of the 520ES was to plug in a IIcx with internal 105Mg quantum hard disk, ethernet and video cards, an SE/30 with 40Mg HD, an SE w/ 20Mg HD, and a Wren 170Mg external HD and then pulling the plug. We got a little over 27 minutes of time on the backup before we got a low battery warning. Not too bad. They provide sizing charts so you can figure out how much power you need to deliver....for example: Mac+ 75VA Mac IIcx w/o monitor 120 Mac IIfx w/o monitor 180 Typical external drive 70 CD-ROM drive 50 etc... Give them a call and ask for their product catalog--it's very informative: (800) 541 8896 or (401) 789 3710 <fax> Hope this helps-- Tom BTW: I'm not in any way affiliated with APC except as a satisfied customer. -- Tom Johnson UCLA Computer Science Department 3413 Boelter Hall, Los Angeles CA 90024 (213)825-2145 Internet: tj@cs.ucla.edu