Not All UPSs Are Created Equal – Surge Let-Through

As Chris Knight pointed out in a comment on our post on a failed APC BR1500LCD and both power supplies in an SC5295BRP chassis, the Surge Let-Through value is a very important one when it comes to determining what UPS needs to be put in front of expensive and critical IT equipment.

So, here we have three APC UPS products set up in an online comparison on APC’s site:

APC Smart-UPS 1000VA SMT1000RM2U $559.00

APC Smart-UPS 1500VA SUA1500RM2U $719.00

APC Smart-UPS 1500VA SMX1500RM2U $779.00

Now, out of the above units, which unit or units would have a better Surge Let-Through number?

The answer was actually a bit surprising:

APC Smart-UPS 1000VA SMT1000RM2U 0.3%

APC Smart-UPS 1500VA SUA1500RM2U 0.3%

APC Smart-UPS 1500VA SMX1500RM2U 5.0%

What caught us off guard was the fact that it was the most expensive unit that had the lesser surge let-through rating.

Now, considering that the BR1500LCD unit also shares in the 5% rating, if we had the SMX1500RM2U in its place we probably still would have had two blown power supplies.

Thanks to Chris, we will be paying a lot more attention to that rating on any of the UPSs we supply our clients or purchase for our own use.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Primary A/C Breaker Fail – APC BR1500LCD and Intel SC5299BRP Dual PSU Fail

One of our clients had a primary breaker pop on Friday last week when an appliance was turned on while someone was running an oven’s self-clean cycle.

When the power failed it somehow managed to kill the APC BR1500LCD UPS protecting the server. The end result of the UPS being taken out was that both power supplies in the redundant PSU setup also failed.

The server was configured as follows:

• Intel Xeon X3220 Series CPU
• Intel S3210SHLX Server Board
• 4GB RAM
• Intel RAID Controller SRCSASRB + BBU
• 500GB Seagate ES series drives in dual RAID 1 arrays.
• Intel SC5299BRP with both PSUs.

Intel sent out a pair of replacement PSUs which fired up the hardware with no issues.

The BR1500LCD’s onboard display normally shows about 20 to 30 minutes of runtime on any given day. It now reads 1 minute so it will also be replaced.

We were fortunate that the spontaneous shutdown of SBS 2003 R2 Premium with ISA installed did not in some way mess up Exchange or Active Directory.

We ran a few reboot cycles and an update cycle checking to make sure that the Exchange database was happy in between each cycle which it was. We had their ShadowProtect backup on standby if there was a need to recover the server.

The final reboot happened in about 1/3 the time the first boot up after plugging in the new PSUs did. We will be keeping a close eye on this box to make sure everything stays happy.

It just goes to show that even with a good UPS in front of a system that includes line levelling that there are no guarantees.

Nothing replaces having a good backup that is known to recover without issues. The stress levels are so much lower when we know we have a fall back in the midst of a server down situation.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Intel SR1530SH/HSH and S3200SH Series - Xeon X3350/60 Not Supported Yet ...

When integrating server systems on the new SR1530SH or SR1530HSH (hot swap) 1U Intel server platforms or the new S32xxSH series server boards, one cannot jump into the new Xeon X3350 2.66GHz or X3360 2.83GHz CPUs right away.

From Intel's product support site:

Note 2: Support for these processors requires later BIOS revision, which will be available soon.

Intel Support Site links:

• Intel® Server Board S3200SH - Qualified and supported Intel® Processors
• Intel® Server Board S3200SH Support page

It seems we need to wait for a BIOS update to happen.

Intel S3200SH Download site: Intel Server Board S3200SH Downloads. As of today, April 6, 2008, there is not a BIOS update package yet.

We will be keeping an eye on this page as we have upcoming server builds that we would prefer to integrate with the Xeon 3300 series CPUs.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.