How many of you run your systems off an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)?

Socrates470BC · 28 Jul 2011 at 12:11

A UPS gives you approximately 5-15 minutes of power if your house suffers a power cut.

Living in a rural area we get more than our fair share of power outages and happily these UPS boxes keep our systems running during small interuptions and perform orderly shutdowns when interuptions are longer than 5-10 minutes.

Most power supplies can handle really small outages like the ones when you see the lights dim and flicker.

However, if the interuption lasts longer than 1 second then your system may have to be restarted with the possibility that some disk writes did not take place or you may even end up with a corrupted disk drive.

With a UPS, interruptions longer than 5 minutes will cause the UPS to commence an orderly shutdown or put the system into sleep mode.

Of course, laptop users have always had battery backup by design.

I have usually purchased a UPS with each new PC.

Currently, they cost from around £65 and up.

stulid · 28 Jul 2011 at 12:25

I use a Belkin surge protector and thats it.

Gazza123 · 28 Jul 2011 at 16:13

Nope! Don't store anything important to care about data corruption and live with stable power.

Reaper 392 · 28 Jul 2011 at 16:28

where i live im more worried about someone nicking the PC than the damage caused by a power cut

searching · 28 Jul 2011 at 16:41

Reaper 392 said:
where i live im more worried about someone nicking the PC than the damage caused by a power cut

lol, reading isn't that bad! You going into second or third year? Got a few mates who go there!

Reaper 392 · 28 Jul 2011 at 16:56

searching said:
lol, reading isn't that bad! You going into second or third year? Got a few mates who go there!

going into second year. i forgot that my location was reading uni on these forums. right now im living with the parents in *shudders* slough, hence the comment

lmao2k · 28 Jul 2011 at 17:03

All 6 boxes in the house have an UPS. Can't remeber the sizes off hand, but I think the max is an 1500 and the lowest is a 750. All APC Smart-UPS

exia · 28 Jul 2011 at 17:08

Reaper 392 said:
going into second year. i forgot that my location was reading uni on these forums. right now im living with the parents in *shudders* slough, hence the comment

Slough!?
Do tell me you have a mine field outside before reaching electric barbed wire fences that's guarded by tanks.

@OP, no UPS, just a Belkin surge protector.

MrChops · 28 Jul 2011 at 17:13

I was until the batteries died recently. Can't justify the expense of replacement.

searching · 28 Jul 2011 at 17:16

Reaper 392 said:
going into second year. i forgot that my location was reading uni on these forums. right now im living with the parents in *shudders* slough, hence the comment

lol, that makes much more sense then! You don't happen to know a Callum L?