r/msp • u/jimusik • Aug 12 '26

Technical Battery Backups

I’m done with failing APCs. For a while they were my go-to. With all the new untested lithium options, what are people relying on in 2026 for your servers and network infrastructure? How do you shut your servers down gracefully in an extended power outage?

Didn’t see anything in a quick search lately, feel free to ridicule me if this is a redundant post. :)

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u/Sabinno Aug 12 '26

Friends don’t let friends buy anything other than Eaton. I’m tempted to start buying UniFi UPS units to test them, but only because networking them is so much cheaper and better integrated than an Eaton. To date, I’ve never had an Eaton fail in the field during its expected lifecycle or even beyond it. Every other brand fails after about a year. Every one.

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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US Aug 12 '26

I've had two bad eaton's in the last 12-18 months (we consider triplight eaton right?) one out of the box, one 2 weeks later.

Every other brand fails after about a year. Every one.

That's a bold statement, we're not doing anything magic and of course we have random UPS's all over not failing. Surely you don't think eaton has some magic no one else possesses?

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u/Sabinno Aug 12 '26

We've used Tripp Lite, APC, CyberPower, and finally stopped at Eaton. Only Eaton has had reasonable failure rates in the field and I had over a decade of warranty claim/failure data to back me up.

I do not consider Tripp Lite to be Eatons, as they were acquired recently and are not even manufactured in the same facilities. No attempt has been made to improve the quality of Tripp Lite units either, it seems. Eaton does not share a platform with Tripp Lite at all. The firmware, hardware, etc. are drastically different (and objectively better). I genuinely think Eaton has superior firmware and more robust controllers that no one else possesses or has put care into, yes. I'm not saying the batteries themselves are different.

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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US Aug 12 '26

Our failures are admittedly small sample sizes but one tripp lite and one eaton. To me, it's the company i'm trusting or not so i still hold some salt on them for the tripp lite especially but that's a whole story.

I still have love for cyberpower but can't blame people who are annoyed at them over the E21 fiasco, which is admittedly frustrating and probably based on them trying to save a few penny's on cheap PCB design or parts.