APC Network UPS, 1500VA Smart-UPS Sine Wave UPS with Extended Run Option, SMX1500RM2UNC, Network Management Card, 2U Rackmount/Tower Convertible, Line-Interactive, 120V Black

I was getting frequent 5-10 second brown outs in my community and it was causing havoc with my mirrored RAID disk array when my PC would loose power; would take 3 hours to rebuild and verify data integrity. My PC has a newer Active PFC power supply and would not work with my older UPS which did not output a pure sine wave. I also usually have one or two other dedicated servers I use for software development. Did some research and settled on this APC UPS. The UPS has worked flawlessly. Keeping all my expensive servers online during the brown outs and saving a ton of time from the RAID verify/rebuilds that I was suffering from. This unit comes out of the box setup as a rack mountable UPS, but the conversion to stand-up tower mode is very easy to do. Just be aware that this thing is REAL heavy and requires you to flip it around a bit to do the conversion. I ended up with a couple of bruises from resting the unit on my legs. No special power outlets are required. This unit uses the normal household plugs. I have a constant 300-400 watt power requirement with my main PC on; 1200 watt power supply, 4 hard disks, ATI 5800 series graphics card. If I turn on my other two servers I have a 800 watt drain with all 3 computers on. UPS reports 40 minutes of stand-by power if I just use my main PC. It reports 22 minutes of standy-by power if I have all 3 computers running. The front panel LCD display reports a lot of information including current watt usage, stand-by power time, etc... UPDATE: 2014-10-25: 4 years running now with no troubles from this beast. Gotta love it when you spend this kind of money on something and it sits quietly doing its job with no attention required other than the initial setup.

I purchased this unit in Jan 2011 after a long search for a UPS that would have a long run-time at minimal load. I use the unit as backup power for my home networking equipment: a cable modem, Soekris net5501 (firewall/router), Linksys WRT300N, and power-over-ethernet (POE) injectors for my VoIP phones. The UPS is kept in a small closet adjacent to my office. During normal operation (i.e. when running off main power), it's completely silent. And it runs very cool. When I first installed the UPS, it would click and briefly activate almost every time my HVAC air handler engaged, or sometimes even when my refrigerated started. But I adjusted the sensitivity of the UPS using the supplied software, and it's perfect now. Plus, I've had no problems when the power has failed. In fact, during one extended outage, it took me a while to figure out that I was even running on backup power - as I've disabled the audible alarms in the SMX750. It's not the cheapest UPS, but it does exactly what I want it to do. And it claims to have a 15 hour run time for the admittedly small load I put on it.

Was trying to find a good replacement for my dead SUA750XL and ran across this unit almost by accident. APC has always made solid products with good warranties, and the design of this one made me want to research it more. Currently connected are: 2 Dell 24" monitor, an oversized home brew computer with an 850w power supply, Epson scanner, HP printer, Asus router, set of speakers, and a powered USB hub. Even with that load, the UPS says it can handle the load for over 30 minutes. Might be better out there, but I really liked being able to stand this on its end, the LCD diagnostics and info panel, and the lack of buzzing or humming other UPS's can make. Recommended!

When I got this UPS, I plugged it in and let it charge fully. I then unplugged it to test the runtime under an actual load. The LCD showed the battery levels tank from 100% to 70% in about 30 seconds. The load was listed at 15% by the front LCD. I contacted technical support and they told me to charge it fully, load it to >30% (with the load varying no more than 5% during the test) and running the UPS until it shuts off. It now reports a fairly accurate runtime, however lackluster I may feel it is. After a few headaches getting the powerchute software set up, I have access to it from outside my network allowing me to keep tabs on the system. The most important thing is this UPS keeps the power going to my devices fairly clean. I tend to have voltage issues in my area and I can hear it click every once in a while as it cleans up the power. This definitely helps protect the sensitive equipment plugged into it. I would definitely recommend this UPS based on price and performance so far. The big pluses for this unit are the expandable battery capability, outlet grouping, and the power cleaning.

Great UPS, very reliable. Sine wave output ensures wide range of device compatibility. I am using these in multiple remote office server rooms to run a variety of devices including Dell/HP servers, storage arrays, and Cisco routers/switches. I recommend purchasing a management card with it such as AP9630.

Right out of box when plugged in it would sound like a machine gun going off. Called manufacturer and they said it was defective. Returned to Amazon for refund. Then ordered from Amazon APC Smart-UPS 3000VA LCD 120V. Very quiet operation and more than handles the heavy load put on it.

It's absolutely quiet until the thunderstorms come through and bounce the power for a few seconds. Then you can hear a click as the relays cut the battery in to the circuit. After the lights stop flickering you can either go back to surfing the internet on your computer that was totally unaffected, or walk into the kitchen and reset the clock on the microwave. It's powering my whole computer room -- two computers, two printers, back-up network drive, WiFi, router, Internet modem, staying about 22% of capacity. Right now, the status window says it can power this entire load for 50 minutes on battery.

I've bought various APC UPSes over the past 20 years and have always been pleased. This time was a sore disappointment. I bought two of these to sit in a server rack in an office. I'm custom-building new servers for the rack to be very quiet and low-power, to reduce the noise in the office. But my plans were thwarted from the get-go by these UPSes because they emit grating, high-pitched noise even with little or no load on line power. They sound a bit like cicadas or crickets and can be easily heard across the room. I phoned up APC / Schneider Electric, and they claimed that there shouldn't be any such noise. After I sent them a recording of the sound, they promptly shipped replacements. (Kudos to them for that.) Unfortunately, the replacements sound exactly the same. I opened up one of them to identify the source of the noise, and it appears to be a transformer near the back. After trying a total of 4 units, 2 of which were manufactured about a year after the others, I have to think that the noise isn't a manufacturing defect -- it's a design defect. It appears the folks at APC have a very different idea of what constitutes acceptable noise levels. I suppose they expect all of these UPSes to be sitting in server rooms that sound like wind tunnels. I really wanted these to work -- on paper they seemed to be just the ticket. The noise is unacceptable, however, so their other attributes don't ultimately matter. Now I guess I'll have to spend more time and money rolling the dice with another brand.