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

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Mar 6, 2024

We compared Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT and Eaton UPS based on our user's reviews in several parameters.

In summary, Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT users praise its reliability, power capacity, scalability, user-friendly interface, and cost-effectiveness. However, issues with maintenance, software compatibility, noise levels, user interface, and battery lifespan are noted. Meanwhile, Eaton UPS users value its reliability, power backup efficiency, integration, interface, and durability. Suggestions for improvement include enhancing efficiency, power consumption, user interface, durability, reliability, customer support, and adding advanced features.

Features: In terms of valuable features, the Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT is praised for its reliability, power capacity, scalability, smooth transition during power outages, intuitive management interface, and valuable support. On the other hand, the Eaton UPS is highly regarded for its reliable performance, efficient power backup, seamless integration, intuitive interface, superior durability, consistent operation, uninterrupted power supply, data protection, convenience in system integration, user-friendly interface, and robust build quality.

Pricing and ROI: The Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT product has been praised for its fair pricing and reasonable setup cost, as well as a seamless licensing process. On the other hand, users have also expressed satisfaction with the affordability and straightforward setup cost of the Eaton UPS product, along with a hassle-free licensing process., The Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT offers reliable performance and substantial cost savings, with high efficiency and easy scalability. Users appreciate its uninterrupted power delivery and efficient customer support. On the other hand, the Eaton UPS provides a significant ROI with increased power efficiency and reliable performance. Users find it worth the investment due to its high-quality build, durability, and improved power management capabilities.

Room for Improvement: The Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT can improve in areas such as maintenance requirements, software compatibility, noise levels, user interface, and battery lifespan. In contrast, users suggest that the Eaton UPS could benefit from improved efficiency, power consumption, user interface, durability, reliability, customer support, and advanced features.

Deployment and customer support: The user feedback for Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT indicates varying duration for deployment and setup, with one user taking three months for deployment and an additional week for setup. Eaton UPS users also reported similar timeframes, but context suggests deployment and setup periods may overlap., Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT has reliable customer service, as users have commended the assistance and guidance provided by their representatives. Eaton UPS also offers great support with prompt assistance and expertise in issue resolution. Both companies prioritize customer satisfaction.

The summary above is based on 3 interviews we conducted recently with Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT and Eaton UPS users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.

Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The battery life seems to be pretty good. I don't have a lot of experience with other units of its size, but it does a good job of keeping our unit up.""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.""It's also very important that the solution is a three-phase UPS. Three-phase cuts down on power usage, which cuts down on our electrical bill, compared to a single-phase product.""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.""Our Eaton UPSs help with business continuity. I have a reliable system in place that I know that I can trust.""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 technology is reliable.""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."

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"We have not had a lot of issues over the many years we have been using the solution.""Stability is one of the key points. The durability and lifetime of the product are also notable.""You can scale it by adding batteries.""I like it because we don't have any problems."

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Cons
"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.""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.""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.""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.""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.""If they could reduce the footprint even more, that would be great. And they could always make heat dissipation better.""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.""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."

More Eaton UPS Cons →

"The solution’s pricing could be improved.""We have been having some issues with the solutions controller and we are having problems finding spare parts.""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 duration of the batteries could be much better."

More Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • More Eaton UPS Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:Eaton 5PX UPS is a reliable and well-respected UPS that has been in production for many years. It is not outdated, but it is essential to consider the following before deciding whether to replace it… more »
    Top Answer:Stability is one of the key points. The durability and lifetime of the product are also notable.
    Top Answer: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 the… more »
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    Also Known As
    Eaton Powerware, Powerware 9300 Series
    Smart-UPS VT
    Learn More
    Overview

    Eaton UPS is a power management provider that delivers a comprehensive portfolio of uninterruptible power supply, backup power, power distribution, and power management solutions, which protect you from a host of threats, including power outages, surges, and lightning strikes. Eaton’s offerings are designed to deliver superior flexibility, maximum efficiency, and unprecedented reliability for network closets, server rooms, and data centers of all sizes.

    Eaton UPS Key Features

    Eaton’s power quality portfolio encompasses a comprehensive offering of power management solutions all from a single-source provider.

    • Complete backup solution: Protect against all nine power problems: power failures, power sags, power surges, under-voltage, electrical line noise, over-voltage, frequency variation, switching transients, and harmonic distortion. Minimize the risk for component stress, burned circuit boards, data crashes, and program failures.

    • LCD display: LCD interface for viewing current UPS status, feature adjustments, alarm settings, and servicing lockouts.

    • Central monitoring and event management: Monitor your entire system using Eaton’s web-based dashboard from a single screen to see a real-time picture of power quality and energy usage. From the dashboard you can set up and manage alarms and system events.

    • Comprehensive reporting: Eaton’s reporting feature allows you to see past individual measurements, trend graphs, and events. It analyzes the complex data from multiple sites and automatically consolidates the information into simple graphical reports.

    • Ethernet connectivity: Connect your Eaton UPS directly to your Ethernet network and to the internet and monitor it from your desktop without installing any additional software.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Eaton UPS stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its extensive monitoring and reporting tools, its scalability, and that it is a stable and very reliable product.

    Brad G., a technical services manager at a government company, notes, “The fact that they're reliable and that they notify us whenever the line power drops are the only things we really need. All our UPS's have been available and up whenever power outages have happened. So far, the battery life, from my observation, seems better than average. It was one of the features that Eaton had described to us. They have a certain way of charging the batteries and keeping them charged so that they actually last longer.”

    Juno C., a radiation oncologist at East Oregon Cancer Center, writes, "The battery life seems to be pretty good. I don't have a lot of experience with other units of its size, but it does a good job of keeping our unit up. There is no active power management. It just keeps the power up. We haven't had any power failures that are long enough to completely drain the battery. It's been good for small power failures. In addition, I can access the built-in webpage on the UPS and use that to look at the status. It's on all the time and monitoring. It gives us an email once a month telling us that our device is working properly. It will also list the power events that happened in that month."

    Smart-UPS VT offers centralized three-phase power protection with the reliability of the award winning Smart-UPS family. Ideal for small data centers, large retail stores, regional offices, and dense power requirements, the Smart-UPS VT includes dual-mains input, automatic and maintenance bypasses, and scalable runtime with hot-swappable batteries for increased availability. The rack mounted version maximizes valuable floor space by incorporating UPS, power distribution, and additional battery capacity in a single rack. Low cost of ownership is achieved through best-in-class efficiency and a reduction in rating of electrical infrastructure - wires, transformers, and generators due the Smart-UPS VT's Soft Start feature. The APC Network Management Card with temperature monitoring provides remote monitoring and management through a simple Web/SNMP interface and provides integration with InfraStruXure Manager. Serviceability is greatly enhanced by user-replaceable batteries, manageable extended run frames and included start-up and standard onsite warranty services. All these features make the Smart-UPS VT the easiest UPS in its class to deploy, manage and maintain.
    Sample Customers
    Gamatronic
    The Boston Red Sox
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company23%
    Comms Service Provider15%
    Government15%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Government9%
    University6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company10%
    Government9%
    Construction Company8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise64%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise57%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise56%

    Eaton UPS is ranked 2nd in Data Center Power Solutions while Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT is ranked 1st in Data Center Power Solutions with 5 reviews. Eaton UPS is rated 9.0, while Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Eaton UPS writes "Company value is more than the product. It is their people Eaton's great product and people keep bringing me back". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT writes "Easy to manage, reliable, and worth the price". Eaton UPS is most compared with Liebert NX, Tripplite SmartPro, Schneider Electric-APC Symmetra PX, Gamatronic Mega Power+ and PowerPlug, whereas Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT is most compared with Liebert NX, MGE Galaxy, Schneider Electric-APC Symmetra PX, Emerson Network Power Npower and Tripplite SmartPro.

    See our list of best Data Center Power Solutions vendors.

    We monitor all Data Center Power Solutions reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.