Everyone knows that computers need electricity in order to function (yes, laptops can run on batteries, but batteries have to be charged too) And with power comes corruption, greed…oops, wait. That’s a different sort of power, let me get back on track. No matter which country you live in, your electricity supply isn’t 100% perfect or ideal. Electrical power is subject to the following maladies as outlined by APC here:
- Sags—Also known as brownouts, sags are short term decreases in voltage levels.
- Blackouts—Total loss of utility power.
- Spikes—Also referred to as an impulse, a spike is an instantaneous, dramatic increase in voltage. Akin to the force of a tidal wave, a spike can enter electronic equipment through AC, network, serial or phone lines and damage or completely destroy components.
- Surges—A short term increase in voltage, typically lasting at least 1/120 of a second.
- Noise—More technically referred to as Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI) and Radio Frequency Interference (RFI), electrical noise disrupts the smooth sine wave one expects from utility power.
In all my almost twenty years of computing, I’ve been hit by all the above. I have relied mostly on surge protectors, and have gone through a few of them. Surge protectors are better than nothing, but they have one major flaw—they don’t enable protection against blackouts. So if you’re hit by a complete power failure, surge protectors are not going to help you one tiny bit.
Enter the UPS, or the Uninterruptible Power Supply. Well I’m going to blush here, because I’ve never owned a UPS, until now. Yup, call me insane, call me irresponsible, whatever. I suppose my alibi is that a UPS is not really cool right? Getting a new video card, a bigger hard disk, a new flat screen monitor, these are cool. But without a UPS, you’re really going onboard your computer ship without any lifejackets or lifeboats. And when disaster strikes, there is a great chance of your computer hardware frying up, and what’s even worse is that the data on your hard disk could be scrambled, due to the sudden power outage.
We’ve had some severe storms here recently, and I’ve experienced the unpleasant situation of the power suddenly tripping in the midst of a deluge. Ugh—if my computer could talk it’d probably scream in agony. So I decided, no more. I didn’t want to put up with this any longer (and I’ve been so lucky thus far; Windows can still boot up, but be sure to run disk checks) I decided to head out to one of the computer stores here to get a UPS.
When it comes to a UPS, it pays to invest wisely, because your data and equipment is at stake. I decided to settle on an APC (American Power Conversion) UPS, the Back-UPS CS 650. At around $90 USD, it’s not exactly cheap, but it comes with a 2-year warranty and is solidly built. It also allows me to plug in my modem and phone lines for additional protection. I installed its Power Chute software for Vista, which gives me all the information I need at a glance (see the picture below)
All in all I think it’s money well-spent for my computing piece of mind. So if you don’t have a UPS yet, it’s advisable for you to get one (but get a good brand such as APC) before disaster strikes.
Related posts
