To cut back on the cost of our ISIS we didn't purchase a UPS. We had a power failure last night so I've been given the go ahead to buy one. I haven't got much cash so I'm going to bypass our usual reseller on this one , can anybody recommend one ?

Cheers

Blue

how many crates?

JDS

Thanks for the quick reply Doc. We have 2 chassis with 16 drives each and then the 2 SDs. 

One of the main selling points with ISIS is it has has no single point of failure when connected correctly. Having no UPS gives us that single point.

"Having no UPS gives us that single point (of failure)"

Exactly.  Any & all mass storage devices need UPS's.  In fact, even they should be redundant.

Sadly Randall our quote was for $570,000 , even in pounds it sends shivers down my spine. We simply couldn't afford this so we didn't get a rack to mount it in , monitors , UPS , staff courses etc.

Still I'd rather have an ISIS than the lanshares we had ( traded in ).

I get the economics, really, I do.  Meanwhile, I've been supporting Unity systems since 1998, when I was part of the Beta Team here in Los Angeles.  I would never, ever, run without UPS's.  I'd rather skip lunch for year.  Or, as the salesweasels would say, "Heck, on a lease, it's only another $25 a month".

You would have thought over 36 months 4ks worth of UPS wouldn't hurt that much. When Unity first came about what was your initial impression ?

When was the last time you actually sat and ate lunch ?

Ah, yes, Unity v1.0.  One large Allocation Group, approx 60GB's ... all 9GB drives.  No mirroring, lose one drive, lose everything.  It was way scary.  But still, ahead of it's time.  Many of the features still aren't available on the competion.

Every Unity I've ever installed or maintained had UPS's and typically redundant ones.  Not only do I enjoy lunch, but I can sleep nights too.

9 gb drives I have a big pile of them , I just can't throw them away. As you can tell it's nearly midnight here but I'm baby sitting the place as we need to change from our patched up 'get it working' set up to a more tidy solution.

Sadly they don't let technical staff have lunch breaks in England but hey this isn't a union meeting so I'll stop there

Hi blue crow... About your original question... I have two UPS's from the brand LIEBERT. One is a 60Kva (yes huge) UPS with 33 car batteries. This one powers all the IT equipment inc Avid stuff, telephone centre and all electronics like video's etc..... This thing costed 15.000 euro's without the batteries. I also have a generator powering the UPS in case of loosing power..... this you do not need unless you're a broadcaster or have a big brother house.

But I also have a small 1000W second UPS for my lanshare, it's vga monitor, my reference generator and time code generator. So if for some reason a main fuse closes my lanshare stays up for at least 10 minutes giving me the time to close it manually if needed. This UPS costed about 1000 euro. The best thing would be to buy two of them.. but even one would improve your safety big time..... There are plenty of UPS's on the market and more cheap.

In my practical experience. I once had a rat causing a shortcircuit in a main power distribution box and once inside my UPS. Yes a fried rat in a UPS... that stinks.......  In both cases I was not present and therefor in time to manaully close the lanshare. So it lost its power after 10 minutes. But no damage when powering system back up in both case. I could be saying bull&^%$ but I believe that if the lanshare/Unity stays on for a few minutes longer then the avid's, which are not on a UPS,.makes the filemanager close all the files that were open. Then the changes loosing any media are smaller. I could also just have been lucky.

Installing the automatic system shutdown software that comes with almost any UPS  made no sence for two reasons. 1st. The filemanager does not close when a shutdown command is given. A manual OK is needed.... this protects you from accidentally shutting down but.... I would have made this an option... or do you guys , Randall, Doc, have another sollution? 2nd. It's not supported by avid.

My point: Any UPS will improve your reliability. You don't need a big expensive one. Check power needed by the Isis system and run to radio shack.......

Thanks jveekeres I'll shop around. The guys mentioned about an emailing/paging system which I'd like to give a go but first things first I'll get the UPS.

Im using 2 - 1,500AVR Cyber Power. Rackmountable, very nice.

I have a Lanshare EX, 1 ZX storage chassis, 1 assante switch, 1 KVM/monitor, and another gigabit switch for our regualr network.

The way i have them hooked up is:

Lanshare and the ZX have 2 power cords, i have one cord into each UPS.  So, basically i have spread the load out between the two of them.

Ive got the ups software only on the lanshare, connected to only 1 ups.  I get about 22 minutes of back up time total.  Ive got it set for 12 minutes.  If the power is out longer than that, it starts its shutdown.

APC is the brand of choice around here.  You might want to start with 2 APC SmartUPS 2200's.  You can buy a module that plugs into them, and be able to monitor them via a web browser.  Also, your ISIS should have pager notification built in as well.  From APC ...

> > The Enterprise Manager is now the ISX Manager.  It allows you a central location, that can be loaded from any web browser on the network, to monitor all of your units that are networkable. 
> >> > http://apcc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=56

 the guys??? a mailing system? a paching sytems? The mailing systems will be using pigeons?....  And to inform you that the power died?. Sorry I don't want to be scarcastic but you'll only get informed faster that a posible disaster took place...

Murphy's law makes you loose your project half a day before your deadline... 100% save does not exist. 99,9% is very very expensive but do yourself a favour and try to reduce the risk or ask whoever is in charge of the finances to take responsibility if Murphy's law becomes reality. 

"So, basically i have spread the load out between the two of them ..."

Excellent point.  The load should be 1)balanced across UPS's, 2)no more than 80%