Tiny UPS for Tiny NAS

 

Before You start reading I must disappoint You – using Baseus 100W 20000mAh powerbank (described in this article below) would not work properly as UPS.

After some research I have described at least two working solutions in the follow up article – Tiny UPS for Tiny NAS Reloaded – available here.

It described the use of these EATON 3S Mini 36W 2200mAh UPS and ZMI QB826G 210W 25000mAh powerbank as working and reliable UPS solutions.

Below You will find original article content.

I am a big fan of building things by yourself. That also includes my NAS instead of using something prebuilt such as some Synology or QNAP NAS box. Although I must say that these small NAS devices with 2.5 disks slots like Synology DS416SLIM or QNAP TS-453S PRO look really interesting … if I could only put FreeBSD there. In the past these were my attempts at creating my low power NAS systems.

• Silent Fanless FreeBSD Server/Desktop
• Silent Fanless FreeBSD Server – DIY Backup
• Silent Fanless FreeBSD Server – Redundant Backup
• Silent Fanless Dell Wyse 3030 LT FreeBSD Server

Currently I still use low power Dell Wyse 3030 LT fanless systems with 2.5 HDD attached to is via USB cable.

Its performance is more then enough for my needs and it really draws small amount of power – about 4.5W when idle and about 10W when fully loaded … of course when the power is available. Sometimes – not often but still – the electricity is gone for like seconds or minutes – which of course makes this NAS poweroff. Sometimes the electricity is back and gone several times in short period which is the most dangerous one for the longevity of these devices.

I was thinking about adding some small UPS just to shield it from these rapid on/off electricity events but I did not wanted anything big and bulky like a regular APC brick like that one below.

While doing its service that APC is like several times larger then the NAS itself. After doing some research and sticking all the LEGO bricks together I came with an idea to use a larger … powerbank.

After some search I have found a used Baseus 100W 20000mAh device in nice condition for about $25 that is even able to charge a laptop and a phone simultaneously.

The important specs for this Baseus 100W 20000mAh powerbank are below.

They may be useful when You will be looking for other model then that one for the same purpose.

When attached – the powerbank display showed 20V/0.4A so I assume this is the mode you will be looking for.

OUTPUT  USB-C  100W     -/-   5V/3A   -/-     9V/3A  12V/3A    15V/3A  20V/5A
OUTPUT  USB-A   30W  4.5V/5A  5V/3A  5V/4.5A  9V/3A  12V/2.5A

OK – we have the power source – but we still need to connect that power to our Dell Wyse 3030 LT system.

This is where AliExpress comes to the rescue – https://aliexpress.com/item/1005001433106467.html – where I got the USB-C to 5.5×2.5mm Adapter shown below.

This is how much space whole solution takes with powerbank as UPS added.

Fully charged Baseus 100W 20000mAh powerbank is able to keep alive the Dell Wyse 3030 LT system with 5 TB WD Elements 2.5 USB 3.0 drive attached for more then 8 hours and its displaying that on its display.

I also added additional small 90 Degree USB-C to USB-C Adapter to make the USB-C cable take less space – https://aliexpress.com/item/1005006223071504.html – from here.

As for the attachment to the wall for electricity – I used a standard small USB Charger – this one had 5V/2.4A output.

It is a lot smaller then the power supply that came with the Dell Wyse 3030 LT system (the lower one).

Lets check how adding that powerbank UPS look like when it comes to cost of the solution.

 $18  Dell Wyse 3030 LT
 $80  5TB WD Elements 2.5 HDD
  $8  Lexar S47 32GB USB 3.0 Pendrive
$106  TOTAL


 $25  Baseus 100W 20000mAh
  $2  USB-C to 5.5x2.5mm Adapter
  $2  90 Degree USB-C Adapter
  $2  USB 5V/2.4A Wall Charger
  $3  USB-C Power Delivery Cable
 $34  TOTAL

So the core NAS cost about $106 while adding the powerbank UPS to it added additional $34 with total $140 for the solution.

Hope that you may find that useful in your builds 🙂

Regards.

EOF