Author:
Joe Williams
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Date Posted: 01:55:38 07/14/10 Wed
>>A number of years ago (about 15) I was doing some
>>volunteer work with a group in Manitoba. One of the
>>guys I was teaching about computers was living in a
>>rural area - cottage country. He had spent a lot of
>>money on a top of the line computer and backup system.
>> Unfortunately he didn't have the other part of the
>>equation covered - good power. His backups were trash
>>because of power drops in his area. He lost 4 hard
>>drives in 3 months because of brownouts. We finally
>>got him convinced to put a UPS on his computer - When
>>I left the area a couple years later he had not lost a
>>backup or hard drive after wards - I have UPS systems
>>on all my computers and have never lost any data or a
>>hard drive.
>
>Don't forget to change the batteries every so often
>(the standard in the local IT world is three years).
>They are a sealed lead-acid design, a close cousin to
>what is in your car. A while back I was asked to look
>at a UPS that had lasted maybe 20 seconds after the
>lights went out.... the battery was over 12 years old.
>I swapped the battery (a 10 minute job once I had the
>new one) and all was well.
>And UPSs are not limited to computers - I've seen them
>on business phone systems and a friend's neighbor has
>one on his fish tank air pump.
I work in telecommunications and know what you mean, most of our sites have full building UPS systems (starting at 40kW modular and going up to 80kW). It's amazing to see a system with 40-60 120V battery packs that has a total run time of maybe 45 minutes under load. As for the little ones, most of the ones I've encountered (APC, BestPower, Fortress, etc) all pretty much use the same style of 12V sealed batteries like the type used for burglar alarm and fire panels, emergency exit lights, and so forth).
JW
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