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UPS, Universal Problem Solver? I wish…

So after doing some reading, I decided to take the advice from others that I needed a UPS for the FreeNAS project, I'd rather not lose my entire data store because of a power outage.
I went through my usual sites and could not find anything that stood out, I’ve only seen Eaton and APC UPS units used in office environments and data-centres so I decided to aim for one of those since I assume they would have a good rep. Thought I might give Gumtree a shot, never used the site since I like having a fall back if someone decides to sell something dodgy.
As I was going through gumtree I found one UPS unit that stood out (HP t1500 G3), so I decided to call the guy and ask a few questions about it. Had a chat on the phone and asked the following questions
  • How old is the unit? – “it was bought in 2012 and used as a UPS for the VOIP phone system”.
  • What are the condition of the batteries? – “they were good” (more on this later)
  • Asked if the unit was heavily used at all – ” no it was maybe once a year and never discharged”
Honestly, I was not sure what else to ask when purchasing a secondhand UPS. I was, however, ready to assume that the batteries were gone, but for 50$ was happy with the unit even if I had to buy a new set of batteries. I organised a time to go pick it up with the guy (later that day). I was more than happy with purchasing a unit without batteries if it was functioning properly and that it worked with the FreeNAS UPS automatic shutdown feature.
So I jumped in the car and headed out there and met the guy, turns out he was an Indian dude on a 457 visa, he said he worked in IT but avoided my questions about where he worked (good idea) or what he did (as in what he actually does in his workplace), anyway I inspected the unit and it appeared good it. He plugged a laptop in and showed that it charged, so I gave the guy the $50 and took the unit. Got home and had a bit of a poke around the unit on how it worked or functioned.

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The unit had a bit of wear and tear on it, turned it on and it all looked good. Put the software on my laptop and went to have a gander at what the HP software said.

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When I logged onto the software it said that the UPS on buck, whatever that means…

More later

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