Should I replace my UPS?
October 23, 2011 5:15 PM Subscribe
How important is it to get a UPS for my computer? Mine recently died, and I'm wondering if I should replace it. My computer is a Windows 7 desktop, if that matters.
My UPS that I've had since about 2004 died the other morning (screamed for a few minutes solid then shut off completely), and I am considering getting a new one. I just don't know if it's really worth the money.
We have power outages maybe four to six times per year, but I am not sure if we have voltage spikes. My boyfriend has been using just a surge protector for his computer for three years and not had a problem.
Overall, I am leaning towards getting one (in the $50-75 range from Fry's), but I just don't know the main arguments for having one. I'd like to have some good justification to help me convince my boyfriend to buy one as well. He just bought a new computer a couple months ago, and I would hate for something to happen to it.
Also, if you are pro-UPS, what features do you think are crucial?
My UPS that I've had since about 2004 died the other morning (screamed for a few minutes solid then shut off completely), and I am considering getting a new one. I just don't know if it's really worth the money.
We have power outages maybe four to six times per year, but I am not sure if we have voltage spikes. My boyfriend has been using just a surge protector for his computer for three years and not had a problem.
Overall, I am leaning towards getting one (in the $50-75 range from Fry's), but I just don't know the main arguments for having one. I'd like to have some good justification to help me convince my boyfriend to buy one as well. He just bought a new computer a couple months ago, and I would hate for something to happen to it.
Also, if you are pro-UPS, what features do you think are crucial?
When we had desktops I had one for that and the networking equipment. Currently all of our computers are laptops so i don't worry about them. But I have two business class NAS that contain terrabytes of data; A multi-thousand cd music collection, hundreds of movies copied from a DVD collection that includes too many rare and hard to replace movies to think about, and perhaps most importantly, bootable backup copies of every OS on every computer in the house. We recently moved to an area with amazingly dodgy power distribution, so having something that can protect our data from corruption due to sudden loss of power is pretty important.
You should look at the power consumption of every device that you're going to have connected to it, and start looking for an UPS that exceeds that number by perhaps 25-50%, if not more. I like having my fios modem, routers, and switches connected along with the two NAS, as the network will remain operational as long as the UPS has power. This helps if you're in the middle of a file transfer when the power quits. If your power is dodgy then the power conditioning feature some UPS have is a good idea. I have a large Cyberpower UPS that monitors voltage and only conditions the power if it falls outside of a certain voltage range. Cyberpower calls this a "green" feature, as apparently some UPS condition all power coming through, which is obviously a waste if not needed. I think I paid $115 for my UPS from Newegg, and with the load I have connected to it (roughly equivalent to a newer iMac) I have about 90 minutes of backup time. I went with the more expensive model because it had the better, more efficient power conditioning, as well as display to see what's happening at all times. If your computer has software to coordinate with the UPS to save open documents and shut down the system after a specified period of time (available from many good UPS manufacturers for free) this much time is overkill; I'd say 20 to 30 minutes would be adequate.
Pick a brand with a good warranty; my first cyberpower UPS died after 6 months, but I like that it has a 3 year warranty, longer than many other manufacturers, and the replacement is doing fine. I would also look at APC and Tripp-lite. It may be worth an additional 30 or 40 dollars to buy a larger one if only to get a model with a more standard sized battery; My first UPS was from APC, and cost something like $65. After 5 or so years the battery died. The replacement was hard to find, and when I did find one it was $75. So I ended up tossing the entire thing in the rubbish and getting the Cyberpower. So YMMV with what model and price point you choose. Good Luck!
posted by chosemerveilleux at 6:13 PM on October 23, 2011
You should look at the power consumption of every device that you're going to have connected to it, and start looking for an UPS that exceeds that number by perhaps 25-50%, if not more. I like having my fios modem, routers, and switches connected along with the two NAS, as the network will remain operational as long as the UPS has power. This helps if you're in the middle of a file transfer when the power quits. If your power is dodgy then the power conditioning feature some UPS have is a good idea. I have a large Cyberpower UPS that monitors voltage and only conditions the power if it falls outside of a certain voltage range. Cyberpower calls this a "green" feature, as apparently some UPS condition all power coming through, which is obviously a waste if not needed. I think I paid $115 for my UPS from Newegg, and with the load I have connected to it (roughly equivalent to a newer iMac) I have about 90 minutes of backup time. I went with the more expensive model because it had the better, more efficient power conditioning, as well as display to see what's happening at all times. If your computer has software to coordinate with the UPS to save open documents and shut down the system after a specified period of time (available from many good UPS manufacturers for free) this much time is overkill; I'd say 20 to 30 minutes would be adequate.
Pick a brand with a good warranty; my first cyberpower UPS died after 6 months, but I like that it has a 3 year warranty, longer than many other manufacturers, and the replacement is doing fine. I would also look at APC and Tripp-lite. It may be worth an additional 30 or 40 dollars to buy a larger one if only to get a model with a more standard sized battery; My first UPS was from APC, and cost something like $65. After 5 or so years the battery died. The replacement was hard to find, and when I did find one it was $75. So I ended up tossing the entire thing in the rubbish and getting the Cyberpower. So YMMV with what model and price point you choose. Good Luck!
posted by chosemerveilleux at 6:13 PM on October 23, 2011
1- See if the battery is replaceable in your current UPS. Sometimes that's how they die.
2- My computers have behaved better (no random lockups, etc.) since I started using a UPS.
3- Except for the above, no, the dollars probably don't work out with computers as inexpensive as they are. But if you have bad power, they can pay for themselves.
posted by gjc at 6:44 PM on October 23, 2011
2- My computers have behaved better (no random lockups, etc.) since I started using a UPS.
3- Except for the above, no, the dollars probably don't work out with computers as inexpensive as they are. But if you have bad power, they can pay for themselves.
posted by gjc at 6:44 PM on October 23, 2011
We have power outages maybe four to six times per year
Wow. That scream you heard was very probably (a) capacitor(s) dying. If you really get outages that many times a year, personally, I'd rather have a $75 UPS that will take the punishment over having a blown power supply or motherboard/CPU (which can be problematic to troubleshoot as to which parts you need to replace vs. buying a new computer).
I don't know why but I sometimes see computers spontaneously power back when the juice is restored after an outage, but only once have I seen the PSU blow out. That also fried the motherboard, too, but it was an older computer with cut-rate components so it was a no-brainer to replace rather than fix.
Yeah, everyone should have an external backup solution that they use regularly and consistently. If you have important, irreplaceable stuff, then off-site storage is a good idea. A buddy of mine, who's livelihood is his code and uptime running of that code, does a weekly system image to external HDs which rotate with the previous week's image in a lockbox at the bank, along with the occasional copy on (near) archival quality DVD which gets stored somewhere else.
posted by porpoise at 6:46 PM on October 23, 2011
Wow. That scream you heard was very probably (a) capacitor(s) dying. If you really get outages that many times a year, personally, I'd rather have a $75 UPS that will take the punishment over having a blown power supply or motherboard/CPU (which can be problematic to troubleshoot as to which parts you need to replace vs. buying a new computer).
I don't know why but I sometimes see computers spontaneously power back when the juice is restored after an outage, but only once have I seen the PSU blow out. That also fried the motherboard, too, but it was an older computer with cut-rate components so it was a no-brainer to replace rather than fix.
Yeah, everyone should have an external backup solution that they use regularly and consistently. If you have important, irreplaceable stuff, then off-site storage is a good idea. A buddy of mine, who's livelihood is his code and uptime running of that code, does a weekly system image to external HDs which rotate with the previous week's image in a lockbox at the bank, along with the occasional copy on (near) archival quality DVD which gets stored somewhere else.
posted by porpoise at 6:46 PM on October 23, 2011
I think it really comes down to this. Do you work on stuff that you don't back up constantly that you could really be hurt by losing? Are you concerned by power spikes and brownouts? A UPS simply puts a layer between you and these problems. Power interruptions 4 to 6 times a year are too many for the kind of work we do here. We have a UPS on each computer. Of course we're kind of cautious when it comes to things like that.
posted by Old Geezer at 7:21 PM on October 23, 2011
posted by Old Geezer at 7:21 PM on October 23, 2011
There are two reasons to own a UPS for a desktop:
* prevent file system corruption if you get an unexpected power cut while you're writing to the disk
* prevent loss of whatever you're working on by giving you enough time to save non-saved work before the UPS runs out of juice
NTFS, the filesystem for Win7, is a semi-modern journaled filesystem, so it is pretty tolerant of writes being interrupted. This greatly reduces the odds of item #1. The question remains, then, how much of the small remaining #1 risk are you willing to tolerate and how often would you run into the #2 case? If you do all your work in an environment which auto-saves every few minutes, etc., then the danger of #2 isn't particularly high.
Having said that, I also live in an area where we get fairly routine short power cuts. A UPS makes it tolerable because I never end up going "oh crap, that was an hour's worth of work!" So the only features I think are crucial are 1. it has to run the machine long enough to get things saved and shut down and 2. it has to have USB connectivity so the computer can gracefully shut itself down if I'm not standing in front of it.
The little, inexpensive, APC / Tripp-Lite / etc. ~ 600-some VA brick UPSes are fine for the job. You get five minutes or so of runtime for a typical computer and monitor. If you need to keep a machine powered through a longer blackout, then you have to start spending real money.
posted by introp at 7:29 AM on October 24, 2011
* prevent file system corruption if you get an unexpected power cut while you're writing to the disk
* prevent loss of whatever you're working on by giving you enough time to save non-saved work before the UPS runs out of juice
NTFS, the filesystem for Win7, is a semi-modern journaled filesystem, so it is pretty tolerant of writes being interrupted. This greatly reduces the odds of item #1. The question remains, then, how much of the small remaining #1 risk are you willing to tolerate and how often would you run into the #2 case? If you do all your work in an environment which auto-saves every few minutes, etc., then the danger of #2 isn't particularly high.
Having said that, I also live in an area where we get fairly routine short power cuts. A UPS makes it tolerable because I never end up going "oh crap, that was an hour's worth of work!" So the only features I think are crucial are 1. it has to run the machine long enough to get things saved and shut down and 2. it has to have USB connectivity so the computer can gracefully shut itself down if I'm not standing in front of it.
The little, inexpensive, APC / Tripp-Lite / etc. ~ 600-some VA brick UPSes are fine for the job. You get five minutes or so of runtime for a typical computer and monitor. If you need to keep a machine powered through a longer blackout, then you have to start spending real money.
posted by introp at 7:29 AM on October 24, 2011
I live in an old building (Brooklyn, NY) with only 2 15-amp circuits into the apartment. Con Edison supplies good quality power, but I have to put a number of appliances on each circuit, and the voltage varies all over the place when one of them goes on. I blew out two amplifiers and a computer before I got a UPS.
After a good bit of research, I got one that supplies sine-wave rather than square-wave power, since that matches what the power company gives you. For several years, I have used, without problem, an earlier version of the APC Back-UPS. Their literature doesn't say whether the current model is sine- or square-wave, so you'll need to talk to their Tech Support people to find out.
The model 620 is big enough to support the computer and low-power peripherals such as a router or external hard drive, but a printer must never be on the UPS, because it constantly cycles a heating element off and on and messes up the wave-form and the UPS batterries.
posted by KRS at 11:59 AM on October 24, 2011
After a good bit of research, I got one that supplies sine-wave rather than square-wave power, since that matches what the power company gives you. For several years, I have used, without problem, an earlier version of the APC Back-UPS. Their literature doesn't say whether the current model is sine- or square-wave, so you'll need to talk to their Tech Support people to find out.
The model 620 is big enough to support the computer and low-power peripherals such as a router or external hard drive, but a printer must never be on the UPS, because it constantly cycles a heating element off and on and messes up the wave-form and the UPS batterries.
posted by KRS at 11:59 AM on October 24, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
What you should do with that $75 is buy yourself a nice 500gb or 1tb external drive an do backups of your data. In the case of a horrible electric incident the UPS wont do you any good and the only thing you'll have are those backups.
*enthusiast lore also includes things like running reg cleaners and multiple AVs, so take that as you will.
posted by damn dirty ape at 6:11 PM on October 23, 2011 [1 favorite]