Battery Backup - PC Support

[DonSchap]

I was out at Office Depot the other night and they were having a clearance on 1200 VA Battery backups. Normally, most people can get by with a 750VA on their systems, but when you are running the heavy stuff ... yeah right. ;p

Anyway, I found one on clearance for $71, which is kind of like unheard of for such performance. It is usually over $200 for something of this size. It should be able to handle the entire system, with the heavy hard drives and large monitor. I just thought I'd mention because they also had the smaller models for lower prices, obviously. Battery backup has saved a lot of my work with some of these power outages I've been victim to, this year.

Anyone else using a Uninterruptable Power Supply?

[laydros]

Yeah, I've always been a big fan of them. I had a cheap one and then when I was working at Office Max, bought a big one on a killer clearance, it has stayed with my system for several years now.

One rarely mentioned benefit is that it helps regulate the power getting to your computer, which extends the life of the power supply, an often overlooked failure point in computers.

[DonSchap]

One other aspect that YOU may want to consider is checking that battery inside of it. After a year, they tend to fail for some reason. Just give it a test once in a while, to ensure it still can do the job.

As an IS Network Tech for the past twenty years ... I can sight too many examples of these "annual" failures. It's worth a semi-annual quick "plug pull" to see if it can perform.

[Visual Reality]

I use an APC 1300 unit with the LCD readout on the front. Tells me a lot of information, including # of power outage events, battery charge level, total wattage used, estimated run time based on current wattage draw, and input and output voltage.

It was around $120-130. I recommend them for anyone, especially those with frequent power problems.