Chloride Active 1000VA RT review

Chloride’s rack/floor-standing UPS is the priciest here by quite a margin, but the reason for this is in the name: it’s the only active UPS in this test. Essentially, this is an online system that uses the battery as the primary power source, so there’s no switching delay in the event of a failure, making this a good choice for protecting mission-critical systems.

This rack-mount unit can be placed upright on the floor using the supplied feet, and the backlit LCD panel can be popped out and twisted round. There are six outlets at the rear, and battery power can be increased by adding extra packs to the connector.

Chloride’s monitoring software is the least impressive here. Its MopUPS product may sound amusing, but the fact that it doesn’t even support the USB port on the UPS will wipe the smile off your face. However, using a COM port connection provides information about UPS status, load, battery charge and capacity. Shutdowns in the event of a prolonged blackout can be configured to occur after a set number of minutes, and this can also be applied to other systems running the MopUPS agent.

An optional ManageUPS Net card can be slotted in at the back, where it provides a web console that’s more informative than the MopUPS interface, offering a full status display, along with a detailed event log and options to run diagnostics. The MopUPS software will also work with this, as instead of selecting a COM port you provide the card’s IP address.

At this price, the Active 1000VA isn’t a good deal, and the monitoring

and shutdown features are poor in comparison to the competition.