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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 December 2024, in the Data Center Power Solutions category, the mindshare of Eaton UPS is 37.4%, up from 36.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT is 29.9%, down from 32.1% 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

"It's also very important that it's a rack-mountable, three-phase UPS. Some of the equipment we run requires a three-phase, such as HPE BladeSystems and some of the Cisco core devices."
"The most valuable feature is the control... we couldn't live life without [PredictPulse]. It does add a level of comfort knowing that PredictPulse is telling us about potential errors before they happen. My preference is to keep it in ESS mode. It saves me a good amount of money."
"Our Eaton UPSs help with business continuity. I have a reliable system in place that I know that I can trust."
"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."
"We have utilized the building-block nature of the solution as we have grown. We can add modules, which helps from a cost standpoint and protects the initial capital investment in the system, rather than having to completely replace the system. We can start small scale and incrementally fund additional capacity as needed rather than purchasing a system, having to pull it out, and buying a brand new one."
"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."
"The visibility the PredictPulse service provides into our UPS equipment through the reporting is very good. It gives us very high visibility. We can go into the card and look at every parameter, all the settings, all the values. There are several tabs we can look at. We get a very good understanding of what the unit is doing, all remotely. It's very good."
"The touch-screen functionality is easy to read. There are tabs at the top and there are statuses at the top, graphics that give you a quick glance. We use the touch-screen for metering, to make sure the input and output meters are good. We also check alarm events and system history. Those are the things we usually check the most."
"We have not had a lot of issues over the many years we have been using the solution."
"You can scale it by adding batteries."
"Stability is one of the key points. The durability and lifetime of the product are also notable."
"I like it because we don't have any problems."
 

Cons

"We do not use Eaton's remote monitoring, we use StruxureWare. We do use all of Eaton's web interface cards and their SNMP polling, but it's actually going to a Schneider product. Eaton makes something similar, it just wasn't as intuitive."
"I want to monitor remotely and that is a complaint I have... The remote monitoring software they have does not provide the same information that the touch screen provides and neither provide me the same information that the field techs can draw out of the unit when they directly connect to them."
"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."
"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."
"If they could reduce the footprint even more, that would be great. And they could always make heat dissipation better."
"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."
"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."
"I do like the ESS mode which I operate with the 9395s. However, I've got an issue with one of my UPS strings here in Denver: That ESS mode is too sensitive to utility noise. So the utility shows no outages but I've got the UPS switching it in and out of ESS mode."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"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."
"We have been having some issues with the solutions controller and we are having problems finding spare parts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is an expensive technology. The maintenance is expensive. The batteries are expensive. Replacing those batteries is expensive as a capital cost. You have to plan for it every four to five years, but it's the cost of doing business. The cost of not having a good reliable system in place is even higher when you have catastrophic failures. I would recommend the product, but you do have to be prepared to spend some money, both on the product as well as all the environmental preparations for powering the system and cooling system."
"The UPSs are saving us approximately $50,000 a year."
"They are around $50,000 to $70,000 depending on the options and the modules that we get."
"It saves our company money. Because if there is an outage, it is approximately $1 million a minute for an outage. Since we are a very large credit union, outages would be very expensive for us."
"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 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."
"The cost per unit, as a rough estimate, is $300,000 per UPS 750-block."
"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
8%
 

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: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.