Power Back up Systems

[DJ Dubovsky]

I am just curious since I know many of you if not all back up your data reguarly incase of a mishap. This is a good practice and one you will learn the hard way if you don't but how many of you protect your expensive systems from power surge or outages with power backup systems? We live here in Florida which is lightening capitol of the world and power outages are a common place. We have found it necessary to protect our equipment with various different backup devices. We have a UPS battery backup which allows us about 20 minutes battery time to clean up and make any saves to work in progress before powering down and then several surge protectors for various other components as well. We found out the hard way what a power surge can do.
DJ

[Doug Nelson]

To save money I use only surge protectors. What most people don't know is that all of these, battery backups and surge protectors, need to be replaced every once in awhile. That adds up. So I use high-quality surge protectors and replace them every couple of years or so.

[DJ Dubovsky]

I knew they had to be replaced but I always understood it was only after a power surge.
DJ

[jeaniesa]

We only use surge protectors. We certainly get our share of lightning too (esp. in the spring), but most wires are buried underground out here, so power outages aren't that common. Power "glitches" are another story - seem to get about one a month. So far we've been lucky I guess, as they don't seem to have hurt the computers (though the computers do shutdown "improperly".) -Jeanie

[Sanda]

I use surge protectors, I'm lucky my son's an electrician so he's installed one in the household supply and I have another right at the computer power source.He's also put the computer on a seperate circuit to try to protect it for me. I try to back up all my files once a month although I got caught out recently when I was hit with a virus despite being behind a firewall and having my virus software running. And wouldn't you know it it was the day before I usually backed up all my stuff so I lost a lot. I'm trying to back up more often but it's just so time consuming. But I have learnt a lesson and am backing up or writing as much as I can to cd now.

[Ed_L]

Like some of the others, I only use good quality surge protection. I don't know of anyone locally who had a problem with surges from electrical supplies.

Ed

[DJ Dubovsky]

Sanda
That must have been a nasty situation. We also wired our computer system on it's own circuit breaker but mostly because we have so much on one line and were afraid of tripping a breaker at some cruicial time.

Ed
We seem to have power outages and glitches almost daily here in Florida. I use to love it at work because everything went black and you couldn't work so you got an extra break. At home it's a different story.
DJ

[George]

I run all of my computer equipment off of two USP battery supplies. The computer, monitor and external harddrive on one and the printer, tablet, and scanners on the other.

George

[chris h]

I'm about to get hold of a battery back up system for the computers, Belkin seems a popular choice over here. A personal firewall that might be of interest can be obtained from Tiny and it seems to stand up well to the port testers you can use to test your systems vulnerability.

http://www.tinysoftware.com/home/tiny?s=3359931153626415920A1&pg=download

and a good site for doing self tests on your computer......

https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

[sjm]

I'm also in Florida, and if I'm going to be out of the house for any length of time (particularly spring and summer) I pull ALL plugs!

I also shutdown and pull plugs at the first sign of thunder, although once we got zapped by the first bolt in a cloudless sky.

Besides lightening, hurricanes, alligators, sharks, and brutal summers, Florida is a wonderful place to live. Particularly from October to April!

[CJ Swartz]

Have a UPS, but am going to follow Doug's practice in the future. Our power is more prone to "sags" than surges, but we have our share of lightning during the summer monsoon. I turn off the computer when I'm aware of an incoming monsoon. Since I moved last year to the outskirts of our valley, there have been several long-term power outages and a few power interruptions. Last week, while I was home, the electricity went off and on repeatedly several times quickly -- I ran to the computer to shut it off (have a UPS, but not going to make it my only defense) - it was going off and on (UPS not holding a charge) so fast that I had trouble shutting it off. When I turned it back on, all was well (after a Disk Scan and the Windows warning about "using Shut Down to turn off your computer". Soooo, it's time to go shopping for new protection.

[DJ Dubovsky]

CJ
We have the UPS and when the batteries no longer hold a charge you need to contact the company and order some new ones. They seem to last about a year maybe 2 at the most.
DJ

[CJ Swartz]

Thanks, DJ - hadn't even thought about it being as easy as "changing the batteries"!

[raniday]

I had to buy a battery backup because I live in an area with constant outages of only a few seconds, just long enough to crash my computer and start every digital clock in the house to blinking (yes, I could put batteries in some of those, too, but I don't; I just fuss a lot). For a while, my neighbors and I documented the outages, thinking we could get something done, but at long last I decided not to fight it anymore and bought the battery. Each time the power goes off and on, it simply beeps quietly, my computer doesn't even notice, and I smile, and say, "You've paid for yourself again."

Oh, and I voted for battery above, but it has the surge protector side built in, and I plug things like my scanner in that side.

[KevinF]

I was replacing powersupplys and random components every year or so until I got a line conditioning UPS