Hi all, What is UPS input load and how can that affect the power draw of devices plugged into it?
Context: I have an Eaton UPS. Into it I plugged TP Link smart plug to measure how much my homelab draws (1 truenas server, 1 rpi and a switch). These draw about ~29 W when under low to medium load. Almost every day (different time) for couple of hours, however, the plug measure about 6-7 Watts more (~36 W). I have checked both linux devices and they were doing basically nothing. Then I looked into TrueNAS monitoring and noticed that the start and end of each event is exactly the same time when UPS input load is increased from 0 % to ~6 %.
What is this UPS input load and how is it possible it affects measurements by a device that is plugged into it (the UPS) - NOT the other way around? Thank you
I don’t think its rpi or network switch, unless you’ve overclocked rpi with liquid nitrogen 😅. So, I assume its TrueNas device.
If it were a significant power difference, say 20-30 watts, you could easily find the process using htop/iotop. However, 6 watt difference is a relatively small value for a device with ~25 watts of idle power . It might be a process using just 1% system resources. That’s why I would look for systemd timers, cronjobs etc. to find scheduled tasks on specific times. Another possibility is automated S.M.A.R.T. self-tests. Those tests don’t show up in htop or iotop.