NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Communicating with UPS w/ Serial Port?
We just got a ReadyNAS Ultra 2 Plus for my wife's home business. I want to set it up so it can communicate with the UPS it's running on, so it can shut down the drive if the UPS is running low on battery power during an outage. However, the UPS is an older APC Smart UPS 620 Net, which only has a serial port, no USB.
My understanding is that the APC UPS's have non-standard serial cable wiring. One option would be to use the APC serial cable that came with the UPS connected to a generic Serial-to-USB adapter. APC also sells some Serial-to-USB cables, but they don't say if they are wired to be compatible with their UPS's. The cable approach would be a lot cleaner, but I'm wary given the non-standard cable issues. There seem to be two different APC Serial-USB cables, one short one, and one 6 foot one. The 6 footer would be perfect, IF it works. I have a query in to the APC user forum to see if anyone there has used their cables for this sort of situation.
The other part of the equation is whether the ReadyNAS can actually communicate through such a connection. Unless the APC adapter is pre-configured to run the right serial port settings, I don't see how it or a generic USB to serial adapter can negotiate baud rates, parity, stop bits, etc. without user intervention, which would be tricky with the NAS.
Anyone have any experience with this sort of mess? The long term solution is to get a newer UPS with USB the next time the battery in this one dies, but that is an expensive cop-out.
Thanks!
My understanding is that the APC UPS's have non-standard serial cable wiring. One option would be to use the APC serial cable that came with the UPS connected to a generic Serial-to-USB adapter. APC also sells some Serial-to-USB cables, but they don't say if they are wired to be compatible with their UPS's. The cable approach would be a lot cleaner, but I'm wary given the non-standard cable issues. There seem to be two different APC Serial-USB cables, one short one, and one 6 foot one. The 6 footer would be perfect, IF it works. I have a query in to the APC user forum to see if anyone there has used their cables for this sort of situation.
The other part of the equation is whether the ReadyNAS can actually communicate through such a connection. Unless the APC adapter is pre-configured to run the right serial port settings, I don't see how it or a generic USB to serial adapter can negotiate baud rates, parity, stop bits, etc. without user intervention, which would be tricky with the NAS.
Anyone have any experience with this sort of mess? The long term solution is to get a newer UPS with USB the next time the battery in this one dies, but that is an expensive cop-out.
Thanks!
2 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- UPS with Serial adapters is not supported.
- OK, fair enough.
If I have to buy a new UPS, I think I will explore options other than APC. I know they communicate Ok with ReadyNAS's, but I've used about a dozen different APC models over the years, and they all destroyed batteries far quicker than they should, and the automatic self test always failed to detect the resulting bad battery.
NETGEAR Academy
Boost your skills with the Netgear Academy - Get trained, certified and stay ahead with the latest Netgear technology!
Join Us!
