I suspect I'm going to be disappointed here but I have to ask, stranger things have happened....
I have two ReadyNAS NV+ units, one for media sharing and one exclusively for backup of other devices (eg. Windows PC's). The media box is set to auto power on each morning and shutdown at midnight, the backup NV+ only comes up at the times that backups are scheduled. As you can see I'm trying to save power and it has worked perfectly, I love my ReadyNAS boxes. Recently I bought an APC Back-UPS ES550 and I'm having a problem that I haven't been able to find a solution for. I have two situations that cause power outages and hence the need for the UPS -
1. Where we live we occasionally have brief power failures, often 5 seconds or less during which the local supply is auto switched to another phase (I think the correct term) at which point supply continues. If we are streaming media during this type of outage, on rebooting the NAS it always goes through an FS check which takes > 30 minutes due to the size of the FS. The UPS fixes this situation, the NAS doesn't go down and we can restart media streaming as soon as our other devices (TV, amp etc) are back up.
2. We have a very sensitive earth leakage safety switch installed in our home. Occasionally a power surge will trip this switch and engage the breaker. It must be reset manually before we have any power to wall outlets. These outages sometimes occur overnight when we are asleep and we have to wake up and manually reset the switch to restore power to our wall outlets.
My problem is with the second type of outage when it occurs overnight. At this time both NAS are in sleep mode but they draw some current in order to power the auto-on functionality. If the switch gets tripped at 1am the UPS kicks in and slowly drains it's battery powering the sleep/standby state of the units. Since the UPS sensing feature of the NAS appears to not be active the units stay in standby even when the UPS battery reaches 0% at which point the UPS beeps 4 times a minute until I (or my wife) wakes up and has to go flip the breaker back on.
Now my question (if you lasted through all that :-))... is there a way to either -
1. Get the NAS to recognize that the UPS has kicked in while in standby and shutdown rather than continue to draw power? or 2. Silence the 'battery drained' alarm on the UPS and have it cut power to all devices (nothing in the manual or on the net I have found so far). Alternatively it would be great if the UPS had a threshold for drain, in that it halts using battery if the drain is below a lower limit (below the drain that the NV+ draws in standby).
I do understand that replacing my 'sensitive' earth leakage switch could solve the problem but the advice I've had from a tame electrical contractor is that it's better to have that sensitivity than not...
If you're still with me I'd love to hear if you have a suggestion, thanks for reading.
Re: ReadyNAS NV+ in standby draining Back-UPS ES550
You say that the UPS sensing is not active? Is the USB connection between the NAS and the UPS plugged in? Maybe try a different USB connection on the NAS?
Re: ReadyNAS NV+ in standby draining Back-UPS ES550
Andy I did not know that a sleeping ReadyNAS did not shut-down gracefully when the UPS kicks-in to batteries. My UPS is sleeping most of the time except for an hour or so every morning for PC backups, like you do.
Perhaps someone here will know how the NV+ should behave while "soft-powered-down" and the UPS kicks-on, and it's different from what you've experienced (though I guess I'm not surprised that the UPS doesn't wake it up?). Hmmm my UPS is asleep right now, I will go and unplug the UPS and see what happens, stay tuned...
In any case, I do feel you have an undersized UPS. Mine's an APC too, a 1500, which IIRC gives about two hours for my NV+. Barring any solutions from RN experts here, if I were you (with these frequent problems) I would buy a much larger UPS e.g. the 1300 or even 1500 model (which can be had on sale at Fry's often for close to $100) and then in my bedroom have a Power Failed alert of some sort, either audible or a PF light to wake me and give me a chance to power-down the UPS gracefully.
Re: ReadyNAS NV+ in standby draining Back-UPS ES550
If by "sleeping" you mean the disks are spun down, then the NAS should shut down gracefully when the UPS kicks in. (I use a CyberPower UPS, and have had this happen).
Andy has 2 NAS and apparently only one UPS. To get anything graceful to happen, one NAS has to detect the UPS state - which apparently is not working. The second NAS needs to monitor the first NAS over the network, since you can only connect one USB monitoring device to the UPS.
Therefore, the ethernet switch / router also has to be protected by the UPS, otherwise the second NAS will not get the power status it needs.
Anyway, the first step is to confirm that the UPS is properly cabled to the NAS. If the NAS won't detect it, then likely you will need a new UPS. There is a list here: http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=92 which includes your UPS. (It is missing others that work btw).
As far as capacity is concerned, you can always test that by unplugging the UPS during the day (with the NASes "asleep"), and see how long it lasts.
BTW, although I get the electrician's point, I think you might want to press him a bit harder. Maybe you can ask him to put the NASes on their own circuit w/o that protection (since the UPS is conditioning the power).
Re: ReadyNAS NV+ in standby draining Back-UPS ES550
StephenB wrote:
If by "sleeping" you mean the disks are spun down, then the NAS should shut down gracefully when the UPS kicks in.
No, my understanding is that Andy's NAS units can/are actually "Soft Off" by virtue of the RN Power schedule. I don't know what the magic is that causes them to come alive on schedule, but it is different from the disks just being spun-down while the NAS is otherwise On.
But I'm betting he's right, that the UPS and NAS don't communicate when the NAS is in this soft-power-off condition?
Re: ReadyNAS NV+ in standby draining Back-UPS ES550
When the NAS is in that power timer sleep, there is no way to monitor the UPS. The RTC (real time clock) in the NAS will send a power trigger to turn it back on at the time specified. They shouldn't be using much power at all in this state though, which is odd. Do you have access to a Kill-a-watt device (http://www.frys.com/product/5883663), that you could visualize the power usage in that mode?
Re: ReadyNAS NV+ in standby draining Back-UPS ES550
Thanks for all your responses.
To confirm, the NAS are in standby (shutdown but able to wake up according to the schedule I've set).
I agree with you Chirpa, I wouldn't think that they would draw my power in this mode so the ES550 should keep them in standby for many hours and this doesn't appear to be happening. Getting a Kill-a-Watt will take the guesswork out of this, or even as suggested by StephenB to test it during the day manually, so they're great ideas.
I also agree that to keep the NAS up for any extended period of time I should have a larger capacity UPS, but my core need was to keep the NAS working during 5-10 second outages (and avoid a lengthy FS Check), so I had deemed the ES550 to be more than I would need. I hadn't considered my second problem at the point I selected the unit :-(. But MaxBlack you make a great point and getting a higher capacity UPS might solve my problem too.
I've searched Google to find out the power consumption of an NV+ in standby but can't find any specs, next step is to try StephenB's suggestion to put into standby and disconnect from the mains, see how long it takes before the UPS says it's drained. Then depending on the outcome get a Kill-a-watt to determine the drain and then buy a bigger UPS to cover the power needed overnight (so my wife isn't waking up :-)).
I'll let you guys know how I go, thanks again for your help and suggestions, great stuff.
Re: ReadyNAS NV+ in standby draining Back-UPS ES550
Andy, wrt Killawatt you should consider instead this product from Belkin. I really like mine and it places the display where you want it, not at the outlet:
Also, while you are testing be aware that member WhoCares whipped-up a terrific add-on to the NV+ that enables you to easily request a Soft Off NOW, by virtue of a button it places onto the Frontview pages. Look at this thread towards the end of the page:
