[dreamtfk]

So it's summer time here in Florida which means bad lightning storms which equals fried computers. My supervisor has put me in charge in finding battery backups for a few of the workstations here. We need something that will protect while users are using their stations during the day as well as after hours when they are not being used.

Any reccomendations? I am not too familiar with the UPS market.

[CGR]

We use these for our workstations.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16842101088

Work well for us.

[RollingThunder]

Originally Posted by dreamtfk

So it's summer time here in Florida which means bad lightning storms which equals fried computers. My supervisor has put me in charge in finding battery backups for a few of the workstations here. We need something that will protect while users are using their stations during the day as well as after hours when they are not being used.

Any reccomendations? I am not too familiar with the UPS market.

Comsumer battery backups are mostly for temporary power outages and won't protect from a direct hit by lightning. The safest solution is shutdown and pull the plug on everything connected to the computer during a thunderstorm if that's possible.

[Krypto]

Originally Posted by dreamtfk

So it's summer time here in Florida which means bad lightning storms which equals fried computers. My supervisor has put me in charge in finding battery backups for a few of the workstations here. We need something that will protect while users are using their stations during the day as well as after hours when they are not being used.

Any reccomendations? I am not too familiar with the UPS market.

Whetever you decide on... make sure it has some kind of automatic voltage regulator (AVR) or stabalizer.

[RollingThunder]

Originally Posted by dreamtfk

So it's summer time here in Florida which means bad lightning storms which equals fried computers. My supervisor has put me in charge in finding battery backups for a few of the workstations here. We need something that will protect while users are using their stations during the day as well as after hours when they are not being used.

Any reccomendations? I am not too familiar with the UPS market.

As a followup, this URL gives precautions to take:

http://www.flcog.cc/insurance/pdf/voltage.pdf

It's much more complicated than just buying battery backups for each computer.

[CGR]

Originally Posted by RollingThunder

Comsumer battery backups are mostly for temporary power outages and won't protect from a direct hit by lightning. The safest solution is shutdown and pull the plug on everything connected to the computer during a thunderstorm if that's possible.

That is unrealistic in an office environment.

[Rider200]

A UPS will protect your computer from a power surge but not a Lighting Strike.

A lighting stirke is not a local event, that is when lightning hits a spot the resulting power surge goes down any thing that will conduct the electricity. It does how ever disapate very quickly, most of the power goes to ground in the earth.

How ever if there are power lines in the vicenity they will absorb some of the power thus the 'power surge'. the power surge will also disapate but it takes a longer time and will travel farther than the local event. Up to twenty miles if there is not any way for the surge to spread out evenly.

A lightning stirke close to a power line in a rual area may travel down the power lines for a long ways, it will take a long time for the surge to be absorbed and normally no damage is done because there are no nearby consumers.

A lighting strike in a metro area is a differnt matter, there are power lines every where, so your chances of having a power surge goes up.

Do you think as an IT guy for a large corporation with over 400 servers I would go around and unplug all the servers when a thunder storm moves in?

A UPS will stop a surge from a local event, it will not save your systems in the event of a lighting stike close by. Nothing can stop the EMF that will result in a close lighting stirke.

Most companys use APC UPS, do a search for them on the web. There is another fact that is ignored with a lighting stirke - the resulting brown out or power failure after the event. A good UPS will protect your equipment from a brown out or power failure, properly setup it will shut down a computer when the power fails...

HTH

[EchoTheDolphin]

Well to put it bluntly, no UPS out there, even the high end industrial stuff, can protect your equipment against a direct lightning strike. The good news is that UPS's protect against close proximity strikes to a much greater degree than a standard surge protector will. Plus, they generally come with an insurance guarantee that will pay for up to a certain dollar amount of the equipment damaged that was connected after a surge/strike.

Plus the cool thing about them is they also regulate the flow of power from the wall so that it's much more stable and won't damage electrical components over time.

That being said, what wattage PSU will each of these systems be using? Also, how many and what kind of peripherals will you also want on the battery when the power drops?

Best thing to do is calculate the maximum wattage that each will need to be then add 50watts so that you have a system you can add a little bit to if you ever need it.

As far as brands are concerned, I like APC, but cyber power systems also has great insurance on their systems.

[dreamtfk]

They are older Dell towers so I am guessing the PSUs are anywhere from 200-300W and each user will have the monitor printer speakers plugged in as well.

['Cuda340]

Have had good luck/experience with APC, at work & home. Also heard good things about Tripp-Lite. (Just got one, too soon to tell) GL

[FireMogle]

I have always used APC at work and home and they seem to be solid products. As mentioned above there is little you are going to be able to do if you get hit by lightning but if that is your primary concern, there are some products that offer warrenties for lightning strikes... may be worth looking into.

Also depending on what business environment you are in you may be able to build a more robust surge system at the point of entry but I have only heard about things of this nature.

[Category 5]

EMP from nearby lightning strikes can wreak havoc on sensitive chips, especially RAM.

Even unplugging your gear won't help with that.

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Check your home insurance. They usually will cover the cost of fried PC if you can prove you used a good surge suppressor.

Maybe I should check eBay for a non working AMD quad core, non working mobo, set of non working RAM sticks, and plug my pile of non working hard drive. Then plug it all in, wait for a nasty t-storm to come around, then claim my PC "died"

Nah, insurance fraud can come and bite you really hard.

[dreamtfk]

Originally Posted by 4GHZ_or_bust

Check your home insurance. They usually will cover the cost of fried PC if you can prove you used a good surge suppressor.

Maybe I should check eBay for a non working AMD quad core, non working mobo, set of non working RAM sticks, and plug my pile of non working hard drive. Then plug it all in, wait for a nasty t-storm to come around, then claim my PC "died"

Nah, insurance fraud can come and bite you really hard.

Sounds like you got some experience with insurance fraud there bud lol. This is for work however, we ended up going with the Belkin Office 350W that comes with AVR. The cheapest APC that had AVR was around $40 more per unit.

[mbentley]

Originally Posted by CGR

We use these for our workstations.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16842101088

Work well for us.

we get the same battery backups for work (or at least the comparable older model). seem to do the trick for power outages. one of our buildings is very old and power can go out for a few seconds on a regular basis. we have about 30 of them and haven't had to replace many even after a couple years. quite reliable.

[EchoTheDolphin]

I'd say 475watt UPS's should be fine, after all you don't need the printer on battery power, you can just use the suppressor side.

[mbentley]

Originally Posted by EchoTheDolphin

I'd say 475watt UPS's should be fine, after all you don't need the printer on battery power, you can just use the suppressor side.

good point about the suppressor... there are some things that don't necessarily need power during a quick power outage or even if it is a few minutes... as long as you have enough time to save your work or shutdown gracefully via the ups software, it's no big deal. i'd be mostly worried about having my work lost.

[jkeyser14]

Stay away from CyberPower products. Mine died the other week after less than 6 months use and their warranty department has either been taking an extended happy hour, or they don't know how to operate a computer or phone. The battery side of the unit just flat out stopped working and lets out a long continuous beep if anything is plugged into it. I'm about to file a complaint with the BBB due to their lack of customer service.

Meanwhile, someone at work has an APC brand unit he's been using a couple years now and it seems to be fairly nice. I've been reading a lot of reviews and think I'll try them next.

Also, as a word of advice, read the reviews of different units on newegg.com before you buy anything. If a product has much more than 3-5% of it's customers who had issues with the product, I generally steer clear.