Battery backup: how important? recommendations

[NWGuy]

What are other's points of view on using a battery back up (battery backup +/- surge protection) for protection against sudden loss of power? How long should the battery be able to provide power? Obviously, where one lives makes a difference on choice, areas of frequent and/or prolonged outages will have different needs than areas not so afflicted (like mine). I have a computer, a NAS and an additional backup hard drive all needing power.
Thanks

 

[hrv]

If you want it for the ability to safely shut down your NAS so there is no chance of file corruption, then a few minutes will do. Obviously provided that the UPS and NAS can communicate so it sends the command to shut down the NAS.

If you need it to keep the lights on as long as possible, then consider what you want to do (as you did) and look at the specs of you equipment to see how much power you need for your desired timeframe.

If power outages are not frequent, then I think I would go for a solution that gracefully shuts down my NAS within minutes. Shouldn't be a big thing if it only happens once or twice a year.

 

[Viseguy]

I have an use a couple APC 1500 size units. I have one for my PC and I have another providing power for my TV/TIVO. On my TIVO, gives maybe an hour or more, so it will not be forcibly booted in a short outage, as well as smoothing the power and preventing surges. On my PC, I can get maybe 20-30 minutes, more than enough time to power down. Because of the surge protection and voltage spike smoothing, I would not ever be without one.

 

[Barbara]

I got one for my new desktop even though I probably don't need it, because I recently acquired a standby generator that kicks in 2 seconds after the power goes out. But I don't know how the computer will react to those sudden 2 seconds, and the APC unit cost less than 4% of the computer. I value the surge protection also.

I also have a small APC for my TV and satellite service, but that's purely for convenience. The satellite system takes about 5 minutes to reset after the 2 second outage, which is annoying.

 

[MartyD]

I would definitely have a UPS on my computer equipment. APC used to have a calculator on their site that would allow you to calculate the runtime based on the equipment connected. It isn't always the issue with power outages for a length of time but power voltage drops or very quick power switches or very short power outages. When I was a school district technology director we had issues in one building where during certain times of the year at a specific time each day every computer in the building would reboot and every fire door would suddenly shut. It turned out that during heavy electrical usage our provider was switching circuits at that time. The power outage was so short it was only detected by sensitive equipment. We could provide battery backups for office computers but not for the computer labs. My business now has a natural gas generator and so did my central server locations when I was in the school district but a fraction of a second outage will shut the equipment down if no UPS is connected.

 

[SandyW]

I think it depends on you needs. If you are not a heavy computer user, or do most of your computing on a laptop in battery mode, you probably don't need one. For everyone else they are should be used in my opinion. We are too dependent on electricity. They are also useful if you have to deal with brownouts, flickers and dirty power. At the very least you need time to power things down to protect data and equipment. Also remember that the batteries will degrade over time. How fast depends on the the units workload.

 

[Calson]

I use a combo battery backup UPS device that also serves as a sag and surge protector for valuable electronics. I get frequent sags and surges from my unregulated utility provider (the infamous PG&E). Few people are aware that newer electronic devices are far more sensitive to surges than similar devices produced 20-30 years ago. As the transistors have gotten smaller in chips there is less insulating silicon around them and so less of a surge is needed to cause damage.

Not all damage is immediately obvious. A static or dynamic memory module may be damaged on one sector and until an application attempts to use that location all will be fine. This can result in difficult to repeat application problems.

 

[EricBowles]

I'd consider UPS for a desktop computer, storage, and any relevant accessories to be a minimum requirement. It's not necessary for a laptop which already has a battery.

I'm about to get one for my HVAC system. When we lose power due to lightning or other surges, about half the time or more we lose AC or heat until I manually reset the system. It's one of those things you don't notice until it's 78 degrees inside and 90+ degrees outside.

 

[Photographer_Bill]

I have a UPS on any device I don't want to go down immediately with a power blip, they are not so much to keep running, but if power cuts out for 2 seconds and comes back on, all electronics shut down and restart. My modem and router are on a UPS, my TV and Roku on UPS. I also have a solar generator if power does go out for long period of time and I have dual fuel generator if power goes out even greater length of time.

I have an APC 1500 on my main computer, monitor, external drive, etc. but have gotten F02 errors the last two power blips - anyone else run into this, unit is only a couple years old.

 

[Calson]

Overlooked is the damage caused by voltage sags that results in higher operating temperatures for the electronic devices. A good UPS will take care of the sags as will a line conditioner like the commercial ones made by Oneac.

When I lived in Dallas I had a wall phone destroyed by a lightning surge which was unexpected at the time. When I added solar panels to my house I also had a whole house voltage suppressor wired in as well. These cost less than $100 and worthwhile.

Important to avoid using the cheap surge protectors that have single MOV chip that when it gets blown will send current on the ground line and this can cause damage to electronics plugged in. At a minimum the surge protector should have an LED to indicate when the MOV has been damaged.