Question 1x UPS for 3x NAS w USB trigger

[mikeford]

I'm thinking the reliability of my NAS backup scheme might be greatly increased buy putting the NAS units on a UPS with a USB to trigger NAS shutdown on power loss. Can the USB trigger from several NAS units all go to the same USB port on the UPS?

 

[VirtualLarry]

You would normally connect the USB cable to a NAS that supported USB UPS signalling, and also supported network APCD or UPSD, to notify the other devices on the network in the event of power loss, the need to shutdown. Some NAS units do support both of those. I'm not offhand sure whether QNAP does, but I think so (might require installing an app), and I think that the IX2 NAS units do built-in to the firmware.

 

[MalVeauX]

I'm thinking the reliability of my NAS backup scheme might be greatly increased buy putting the NAS units on a UPS with a USB to trigger NAS shutdown on power loss. Can the USB trigger from several NAS units all go to the same USB port on the UPS?

Heya,

I'm not confident that with an entry UPS that you'd be able to have 3 separate sources individually know to shut down safely upon a power loss. Imagine, how to splice 1x signal to 3x USB data channels being delivered to each NAS O.S., I'm not sure that's there. I imagine you'd reliably need a specific UPS per NAS unit at this level.

Very best,

 

[mikeford]

The joke here is that the USB connection is likely plain old serial RS232 riding on USB, and I think it would work just electrically splitting a serial connection unless there is some back and forth, not just a shut down message.

Once I get a new UPS I will find out.

Thanks

 

[mikeford]

I bought a Tripplite Internet350U with a Amazon deal, $38, seems dandy. Supports 250watts, has a USB status port, but my PX4-400d doesn't detect it, pc works fine with it, so maybe the PC software can tell the NAS to do an orderly shutdown via the network? Fortunately or unfortunately the nas won't enable write caching without detecting a USP, so no speed increase.

Setup I am using has a small 4x outlet powerstrip plugged into the protected UPS sockets to support 5 devices; my PC, its monitor, primary NAS, cable modem, and router, total power looks like consistently about 165 watts. Win10 sees the UPS, but so far installing the Tripplite software has some glitches, but it wanted everything running turned off and I was in the middle of stuff and will try it again.