Home

APC Smart-UPS 1000VA review

Dave Mitchell Read more October 7, 2009

Image 1 of 2

£322

Price when reviewed

This 1,000VA floor-standing UPS tips the scales at nearly 19kg; twice the weight of many of the other products here. Along with this reassuring weight, its battery has good longevity and can supply enough juice to keep a draw of 335W going for 20 minutes. There are no fancy LCD screens at the front, but LEDs show battery power status, the load and any detected faults. The battery is user-replaceable and accessed from a panel at the front, while a large plug at the back allows it to be safely disconnected.

There are eight outlets at the rear, but no network ports for comms protection. The USB port links with APC’s PowerChute software, comprising an agent for each system, a server for centralised management and a console to keep an eye on the lot. This means that during a prolonged power failure you can force orderly shutdowns of multiple systems.

The server sends out pager, email and broadcast notifications if the UPS reports problems, and protection strategies can shut down systems when there’s enough battery power left to achieve this safely, or when they’ve been running on battery for a set number of minutes. You can change the strategy for each agent, so you can power off non-critical systems early and leave the important ones running longer.

For £180, APC also offers a network management slot-in card that provides a web interface for remote management and can send out SNMP traps. There’s another for £330 that comes with temperature and humidity sensors.

It isn’t the cheapest UPS here, but the Smart-UPS 1000VA has superior management software and better features than the others on test.