UPS, Cooling & Data Centre FAQs

A UPS, or uninterruptible power supply, keeps critical equipment running when mains power fails and conditions the power it passes through the rest of the time. Its batteries carry the load through short outages and hold it long enough for an orderly shutdown or for a generator to start. An online double conversion UPS also corrects sags, surges, frequency variation and electrical noise continuously, not just during a blackout.

They differ in how much of the incoming power problem they actually fix. Standby units switch to battery only when the supply fails, which suits a single desktop. Line-interactive adds automatic voltage regulation and handles sags and swells without using the battery, which suits small comms rooms. Online double conversion rebuilds the waveform continuously, so the load never sees a disturbance, and it is the right choice for servers, medical equipment and anything genuinely critical.

Far more than blackouts. The recognised list runs to ten power problems, including blackouts, sags, surges, undervoltage, overvoltage, line noise, frequency variation, switching transients and harmonic distortion. How many of them your UPS actually stops depends on its topology. An online double conversion system addresses all of them, while cheaper standby units cover only the obvious ones.

If an hour without your servers, phones or point of sale costs you more than the UPS, then yes. Power problems are not exclusive to large sites, and a small business often has less redundancy to absorb them. The real cost of an outage is rarely the hardware, it is the lost orders, the recovery time and the data that never got written to disk.

Yes. A generator needs time to start and take load, often anywhere from several seconds to a few minutes, and your equipment is unprotected for every one of those seconds. A UPS bridges that gap seamlessly. It also cleans up generator power once it is running, which can be less stable than mains supply.

A UPS provides surge protection, but a dedicated surge protection device on the incoming supply is still worth having. Surge devices absorb a finite amount of energy and are designed to be the sacrificial component, taking the hit so the UPS does not. Used together they give layered protection against one of the most common causes of hardware failure.

A rectifier and battery charger, a battery set, an inverter, a static bypass and a control and communications module, all inside one enclosure. The rectifier converts incoming AC to DC and keeps the batteries charged, the inverter converts it back to clean AC for your load, and the bypass carries the load directly if the UPS needs to be serviced or faults. Every part matters, and any one of them can end a UPS's service life.

Size it on your real load in watts, not on the nameplate ratings of everything plugged in, then add headroom for growth and for the inrush current of motors or large power supplies. As a rough guide, 3000 W of actual load suits a 5 kVA or 6 kVA UPS. Send us your equipment list or a current reading and we will scope it at no charge, which is more reliable than guessing.

Around 75 percent of its rated capacity is the practical target. That leaves room for equipment you add later, covers the inrush when something restarts, and gives you margin as batteries age and lose a little capability. If your growth plans are uncertain, a modular or scalable UPS lets you add capacity in steps instead of oversizing on day one.

Add battery capacity, provided the UPS supports external battery cabinets or additional strings. Runtime is not linear, so doubling the batteries does not simply double the minutes, and past a certain point a generator becomes the better answer than an ever larger battery bank. Tell us the load and the runtime you need and we will work out the configuration.

Because undersizing at design time becomes a replacement project later, at far greater cost and disruption than getting it right once. A UPS sized only for today's load leaves no room for the next server, the next rack or the next growth step. Factoring in a three to five year view during the server room design phase is almost always cheaper than a forced upgrade.

Add up lost revenue per hour, staff who cannot work, recovery and rebuild time, any contractual or compliance penalties, and the reputational cost with customers. Compare that to the cost of the protection. Most sites find the numbers make the decision for them, and it also tells you how much redundancy you should be paying for.

We recommend planning to replace UPS batteries at around three years and the UPS itself at around six to seven years, assuming both are well maintained. Heat is the single biggest factor, and a battery run warm will not reach its rated life. Regular testing tells you the real condition rather than relying on the calendar alone.

Not necessarily. A single faulty block can be replaced on its own, which is far cheaper than a full string. What matters is testing the health of the entire string at the same time, because a failed battery is often the first of several, and mixing a new battery into a badly degraded string shortens the life of the new one.

No. Maintenance free means sealed, so you never top up fluid. It does not mean the battery is exempt from inspection, testing and scheduled service. Terminals still loosen and corrode, capacity still fades, and only testing reveals it before an outage does.

Probably not without attention. A lead-acid battery loses roughly three percent of its life for every 30 days it sits unused without a charging regime, because of self-discharge. Batteries stored long term need periodic charging to the manufacturer's guidelines, and a set that has sat untouched for a year should be tested before you rely on it.

Hot-swappable means the batteries can be changed while the UPS keeps running, so there is no planned downtime, though the load is exposed if an outage happens mid-swap. User-replaceable means the batteries are designed to be changed with simple tools and no specialist training, which is common on smaller units. The two often overlap but they are not the same claim.

Lead-acid is cheaper to buy and remains the default for most installations. Lithium costs more up front but typically lasts longer, takes up less space and weight for the same runtime, tolerates warmer rooms better and needs fewer replacement cycles across the life of the UPS. Where space is tight or replacement access is difficult, lithium often wins on total cost rather than purchase price.

Through a licensed recycler, following EPA guidelines. The responsibility sits with the owner of the equipment, not just the technician who removes it, so it is worth confirming your service provider documents where the batteries go. We handle removal and compliant disposal as part of a battery replacement.

A beeping UPS is telling you one of three things most of the time: it is running on battery because of a power problem, its batteries need replacing, or it has an internal fault. An intermittent beep during an outage is normal behaviour. A continuous alarm on healthy mains power is not, and it should be looked at before the next outage tests it.

Red usually means a critical condition: batteries at end of life, or a fault serious enough that the UPS may not support your load. Treat it as urgent. If the unit is showing red, alarming, or not passing power to equipment, call us on 1300 555 992 rather than waiting for the next outage to find out what it meant.

Amber generally signals a condition worth attention but not an immediate emergency. It commonly indicates the UPS is on battery, is running in bypass, or has a warning such as an overload or a battery test failure. It can also be the early stage of a developing fault, so it is worth diagnosing rather than ignoring.

If there is a maintenance bypass panel installed, the load can be transferred around the UPS and kept running while the unit is repaired or replaced. Without one, taking the UPS out of service usually means taking the load down with it. A bypass panel is inexpensive next to that risk, and it is the first thing we look for on a site assessment. For a failure in progress, call 1300 555 992.