What UPS (uninterruptible power supply) for my use case?

[TheInquiring]

Dear experts, I do need your advice badly on what UPS to employ with my modest setup.
I am not a hardware Guru, and just checked online power requirements (as they published by the manufacturers) for the components I use:

1. Mac Studio (“Maximum continuous power” 370 W) - please see at - https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/
2. ThunderBay Flex 8 DASD (“Total Wattage” 500 W) - please see at - https://www.owcdigital.com/assets/dealer/slicks/Product_Spec_Sheets/owc-thunderbay-flex-8.pdf
3. HP ZR30w 30-inch S-IPS LCD Monitor (“Maximum” 185 W) - please see at - https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02159509
4. Powered Bluetooth aptX HD speaker system (Power Consumption Idle: 10 W, Mute: 6 W) - please see at - https://audioengineusa.com/product_tech_specs/hd6-wireless-speakers/
5. Modem (not sure, but should be not too much, I would guess) - please see at - https://support.shaw.ca/t5/internet-articles/equipment-info-fibre-gateway-xb6/ta-p/5632
6. Telephone adapter (low power usage, I think)

The UPS will be configured to properly shutdown the equipment if the power has been out for over 5 minutes. We usually have several power outages a year as well as a few brown-outs, most lasting less than 10 minutes, but the duration of the outage is not critical, IMHO: of main concern would be transient spikes caused by power grid shutdown and startup.
I've heard that the power coming out of a UPS is hugely noisy, and NOT the “pure” sine-wave. I'd imagine that's true while it's running off battery but not sure how bad it is when it's not. That would be my one concern with running Audioengine HD speaker system off the UPS.

What UPS would you, dear experts, recommend for my use case, please? Will the APC Back-UPS Pro 1500VA do the job or I should go with something like the APC Smart-UPS, Line Interactive, 1500VA ($$$) instead? Should I, perhaps, size my UPS with some cushion, like 115% - 120% of what I think I need? Please chime in!

 

[DonH56]

Total power draw at max looks like around 1000 to 1100 W, above APC's max rating of 900 W for the Back-UPS Pro 1500VA. At 900 W, it lasts for about 4 minutes, according to the APC website. Chances are you won't be at max power, and I would not put the speakers on the UPS (not usually critical), so you might get away with a 1500 VA unit though a 2000 VA unit might be a better choice (or a couple of smaller units; consumer UPS units tend to top out at 1500 VA IME). For keeping things alive to ride out a short outage and to give you time to shut down gracefully I would not get a Smart-UPS (note Cyber Power and others have less expensive "pure sine" UPS units). I think most of the larger APC units are SmartUps so cost much more; in the past I picked up a pair of 1500VA units for ~$400 total to handle close to 1800 W max available from a standard 15 A circuit. If this is a critical application, that is probably what I would do, putting Mac, monitor, and modem on one and the drive bay (DASD) on the other.

When not running on the battery the incoming source is usually passed through to the output, sometimes with RFI filtering. Running on the battery you get a "stepped-sine" approximation which is usually pretty noisy if not filtered. Since you are presumably not doing real work on the UPS, just emergency power to ride out an outage and give you time to shut down, you should not need "clean" power (the power supplies in your components will reject a lot of noise anyway).

 

[TheInquiring]

Thank you very kindly for your most appreciated help, @DonH56!

... in the past I picked up a pair of 1500VA units for ~$400 total to handle close to 1800 W max available from a standard 15 A circuit. If this is a critical application, that is probably what I would do, putting Mac, monitor, and modem on one and the drive bay (DASD) on the other.

I believe you offered a very elegant solution! Will you please be so kind to give me your opinion on the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD vs. APC Back-UPS Pro 1500S?IMHO, CyberPower offers a better solution: 1000W vs. 900W, 1445 J vs. 1080 J, 4 ms vs. 8 ms (typical) transfer time... Could you also please give me an idea of how quiet the CyberPower unit is? The APC unit operates at acoustic level of 45 dBA...

 

[DonH56]

Thank you very kindly for your most appreciated help, @DonH56!

I believe you offered a very elegant solution! Will you please be so kind to give me your opinion on the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD vs. APC Back-UPS Pro 1500S?IMHO, CyberPower offers a better solution: 1000W vs. 900W, 1445 J vs. 1080 J, 4 ms vs. 8 ms (typical) transfer time... Could you also please give me an idea of how quiet the CyberPower unit is? The APC unit operates at acoustic level of 45 dBA...

The CyberPower unit is what I have now. I had some issues with APC maybe five years ago (bad batteries, then a bad unit that failed right after replacing the battery, and it was about a month out of warranty so no replacement, then a three-year-old unit failed right after that) and decided to try CyberPower; I have been happy with them. I have 3-4 around the house (plus several APC units -- our area is probe to outages), including one in the media room, and have not noticed any fan noise. That said, I don't think the fan runs except when running off the battery, or perhaps a little while after use when they are charging the battery, so noise should not be an issue. One battery failed early in a CyberPower UPS but they replaced it under warranty (there was apparently a rash of bad batteries about three years ago).

I have just one SmartUPS at home to power the aquarium because the air pumps and filter motor can run hot running off the battery-powered waveform of the BackUPS units. The pumps only draw maybe 10~20 W but I need them to run until power returns.

A few years ago we purchased a whole-house backup generator so now the UPS' only operate for a few minutes at most until the generator kicks on. That means I have paid less attention to UPS units. My experience over the years is that 3-5 years is about the limit for the consumer units, with 1-2 battery replacements during that time, before they get replaced (either die completely or battery cost exceeds replacement cost). We use larger units at work and their record seems to be about the same, though the SmartUPS seem to last longer (but still need battery replacements every 1-2 years). I have used cheaper third-party batteries with very mixed results; some worked great at lasted 2-3 years, others from the same company failed after a year or so. The batteries are usually sealed lead-acid types so a pain to dispose of (I am able to recycle them at work).

 

[TheInquiring]

Thank you very kindly!

... and decided to try CyberPower; I have been happy with them.

CyberPower ordered in hope they will serve me reliably.