If you have vital data or business projects that absolutely, positively must keep running, you'll need a UPS like the Liebert GXT2
The GXT2 is quite a large online UPS; our unit weighed in at 22.6kg. It's 2U rack mountable, or with a nifty clip-on cover to hide the rack screw holes and a pair of stands, it becomes a very fashionable tower configuration. The GXT2 is available in five internal battery configurations: 700VA, the 1kVA unit we reviewed, 1.5kVA, 2kVA, and 3kVA. That's not the end of the story as far as capacity is concerned either-external cabinets with exactly the same form factor can be daisy chained to the GXT2, so it's possible to configure a 15kVA unit for example with a 3kVA GXT2 and four 3kVA battery cabinets.
The front control panel is pretty basic with a power off/manual bypass switch, power on/alarm silence/battery test switch, and status LEDs for load, AC input, bypass, and battery status. In addition to the DB-9 com port at the rear the GXT2 also has an Intellislot port to connect an optional SNMP/Web card for coordinated shut downs across the Web, an MultiPort 4 card to coordinate 4 PCs or a relay card for supporting AS/400 systems.
When unpacking the GXT2 accessories we came across a pair of DB-9 cables and a black contact closure cable that functions with the MultiLink V1.5 software supplied with the system. The standard software and cable provide very little in the way of control or functionality and we must admit were quite primitive. We were able to download the latest version 3.0 of the MultiLink software and, in conjunction with the other tan-coloured straight-through cable, it provides far greater control and functionality. The software can configure how the UPS handles different events. For example, the default setup is for the UPS to power down the PC just two minutes into a power failure. We were able to disable this quite easily and configure the PC to power down 30 seconds after the low battery warning was generated. We could also adjust the grace period before the UPS powers down, and set it to two minutes, to give the PC time to complete the shutdown.
To test battery life and UPS operation we connected the Liebert to a desktop PC with a 17in monitor the combination drawing a total of 140 watts. Under these loads the UPS managed to power the workstation for an hour and 26 minutes before the low battery condition resulted in a graceful workstation shutdown.
The Liebert GXT2 is certainly an impressive UPS with stacks of expansion potential but we would advise the would be purchaser to immediately download the latest software as soon as they unpack the unit.
| Product: | Liebert GXT2-1000RT230 |
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| Price: | AU$1717 |
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| Vendor: | Emerson Network Power |
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| Phone: | 1800 622 274 |
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| Web: | www.liebert.com.au |
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Interoperability: |  ½Windows NT/2000/XP/ 95/98; Netware 4.11+; Solaris 2.6+; HP-UX; AIX; Caldera Open Linux 2.4, SuSe Linux 6.4, Red Hat Linux 6.0 |
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| Futureproofing: |
½
Brilliant expansion potential as your needs grow. |
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| ROI: |
½Reasonably priced given its features and expansion potential. |
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| Service: |
2-year warranty; also Power Care contracts that include 24/7 support are available as an option. |
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| Rating: |
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2%
4%
