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Eaton UPS vs Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Eaton UPS
Ranking in Data Center Power Solutions
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Schneider Electric-APC Smar...
Ranking in Data Center Power Solutions
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Data Center Power Solutions category, the mindshare of Eaton UPS is 37.0%, up from 36.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT is 29.3%, down from 32.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Center Power Solutions
 

Featured Reviews

RP
Company value is more than the product. It is their people Eaton's great product and people keep bringing me back
The biggest improvement I would like to see is the remote monitoring and management. All the interfaces should match. The unit touch screen, Web interface, and other remote options should provide the same information and it can never be enough! Presently the touch screens and web based interfaces look and function differently. I want to know what this unit is doing. I want to be able to track and trend the data. . The only other features I would like to see are technology improvements, which they're doing anyway. At what point do you go to transformerless? At what point do you have better caps? UPS operate in a simple matter. improvements in software, contactors, coupled with transformerless and Lithium-Ion are disruptive technologies. All the vendors are doing it and making it available. From an improvement perspective, they're on the right path. There isn't anything major that I can jump up and say, "I wish you would do this better." On the single-phase units, I'd like to see ESS and Lithium-Ion through the produce line down to the 50k units. These are coming!
MS
Easy to manage, reliable, and worth the price
As long as we have electricity, we don't use it as it's transparent. However, I have other APC Smart systems and find that all of them are working perfectly. We like that we can manage it via the network. The product is very easy. The product has been very reliable. You can scale it by adding batteries.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is that they don't go down. We haven't had any other UPSs in this location, but we've had Chloride UPSs at other places and they didn't do so well."
"The fact that they're reliable and that they notify us whenever the line power drops are the only things we really need. All of our UPS's have been available and up whenever power outages have happened."
"We have not had any outages or downtime using this UPS. It has kept us from having any outages."
"The footprint is standard, the same thing as every other solution that we could have gotten. But the power density in relation to its footprint compares really well. I have an APC that has the same footprint that's 20kW less. The Eatons have the same footprint but more power."
"In our data center, we have redundancy in all of our racks. When UPS feeds one half of the rack, the other feeds the other half of the rack. We have dual power supplies to everything. We have a lot of redundancies because of that. Luckily, with Eaton dual Battery Cabinets, we can maintain the systems at all times (short of a transformer issue), even while we're doing the maintenance on them. Our IT department loves this, because we don't shut them down at all."
"Their service and their relationship with their customers is their biggest value, absolutely, compared to the competitors that I've dealt with... the service organization of Eaton is one of their strongest points."
"The two things that I like are the ESS, its related components, and the bypass sync, which means if there's a problem with the UPS I can mechanically wrap around it without going to static bypass. Eaton has one of the few units on the market that will do that."
"Our Eaton UPSs help with business continuity. I have a reliable system in place that I know that I can trust."
"I like it because we don't have any problems."
"You can scale it by adding batteries."
"Stability is one of the key points. The durability and lifetime of the product are also notable."
"We have not had a lot of issues over the many years we have been using the solution."
 

Cons

"The external monitoring solution could use further enhancements. I'm thinking of business continuity. If an internal legacy monitoring solution goes down, and it has no one to connect to the outside world, then it can't send out an alert. How are we going to be able to determine that there is a problem with that UPS if it loses network connectivity?"
"The battery life of the older batteries is the only thing that has been our issue up to this point. Luckily, the Cellwatch system that is on there identifies it and notifies us ahead of time when we should get them changed pretty quickly. This may be addressed with the lithium-ion batteries, but it is too early in our ownership of a UPS with a lithium-ion battery to know."
"One time, a feedback breaker in a system-bypass module, or something like that, was tripped. We brought them in to see what caused it. They figured it out and we haven't had an issue like that again, since."
"The industry is going to a smaller footprint, but that does come at a cost, specifically for battery reserve time, size and density of the system, and BTU generation. Those three areas contribute to the heat generation factor. I think that they've done a really good job. But, when you look across our infrastructure, it's the UPS system that takes up the most space of any of our products."
"When it comes to the power management software portion, that's the part that I haven't really seen or heard a lot about. The dashboards of the UPS's, or the management software, are one area that they could probably improve a little."
"Deployment of the product is typical. It's usually a six-week lead-time, which is typical of most equipment. It's not good, but it's just what is expected in the industry."
"I think the batteries are based on lead-acid technology so they have to be replaced every five years, but with the new lithium-ion battery technology that is available, it might be good if, at some point, they updated their battery technology."
"Outside of a full-service contract, my only concern is technician availability for repairs. Where we don't have a full-service contract with them, which unfortunately is the larger portion of our equipment from them, we're just like anybody else, waiting for a slot for a technician to arrive."
"We have been having some issues with the solutions controller and we are having problems finding spare parts."
"The duration of the batteries could be much better."
"Schneider's vendor, I believe, needs to be more involved with the customer. We have to constantly look for them because they don't come to me. I have to go there, and I don't want to. I don't want to waste time looking for a vendor. We require immediate attention."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have a maintenance contract with Eaton, which has been very good. The notifications that we receive, we use email to my team, and they work well."
"They are around $50,000 to $70,000 depending on the options and the modules that we get."
"We use their service plan, which includes parts so we don't do the maintenance on it ourselves. We have a service plan that we use, then they do all the maintenance and periodical maintenance (PM) work. If there are any hardware failures, then they also do the work. Therefore, it's a hardware/software support contract that includes labor."
"I have mixed feelings about the pricing and licensing. I believe that when you sell a UPS, and considering the UPS is a lifeline to a lot of the major corporations, the monitoring solution should be part of the package automatically, out-the-door. If you have to raise that price on the UPS an extra $5,000, then do so at that moment. Don't have that as an extra offer after the UPS has been sold. I believe that all UPSs need to have high availability, all the latest software installed, and be ready to go out-the-door."
"For our used case, 12kW is good. It has worked very well for us. They can be a lot bigger and they can be smaller, but the 12kW seems to be just about right for us. It has a good price point."
"When you bid them out, they're all within a single-digit percentage point of each other... The cost of Eaton's service is competitive because we bid it out. I bid the service for all my units on campus: APCs, Lieberts, Eatons, because we've got a big hodgepodge of everything. Eaton won on price."
"The pricing is far more competitive than APC or Liebert, the other two big players. And Eaton's service is phenomenal."
"It has been more of a cost of doing business and maintaining our systems. We use it more as an insurance policy to ensure that our medical records stay up and running. The loss of revenue would have a bigger impact to our organization if our systems were not up and operating. An outage over a 24-hour period could easily be in the $300,000 range, which would be pretty substantial. We are a three million square foot hospital with 380 beds, so it would impact us quickly."
"It is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Eaton UPS?
I have mixed feelings about the pricing and licensing. I believe that when you sell a UPS, and considering the UPS is a lifeline to a lot of the major corporations, the monitoring solution should b...
What do you like most about Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT?
Stability is one of the key points. The durability and lifetime of the product are also notable.
What is your primary use case for Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT?
It is one of the power protection solutions provided by the company. We use the solution to protect the IT infrastructure of the banking, hospitality, healthcare sectors, etc. Schneider is one of t...
 

Also Known As

Eaton Powerware, Powerware 9300 Series
Smart-UPS VT
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Gamatronic
The Boston Red Sox
Find out what your peers are saying about Eaton UPS vs. Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.