With the most recent power outage fresh in our memory, it’s a good time to review power protection – steps you should take to protect your computers and other electronic gear from electrical interruptions, brownouts, surges, and “dirty” or “noisy” power.
Computers are very sensitive and require clean and continuous power. A recent survey estimated that 45.3 percent of all computing and network equipment or data loss failures reported are attributed directly to power failures or surges.
The damage can be great. In just a typical example of a car hitting a utility pole, primary distribution lines are shorted, causing an electrical surge followed quickly by a complete loss of power. The surge travels instantaneously through the electrical distribution wiring into an unprotected server via the electrical outlet. The motherboard and its components are damaged, and data contained in the system memory is lost. After the surge passes and all power to the server is lost, unprotected hard disks can crash and critical data stored in the disk controller’s cache can be instantly lost. As a result, the business has suffered a damaging loss of critical data, which may or may not be recoverable.
Assess Your Risk and Address Wiring Issues
You can avoid system damage or data loss, and even keep running during momentary interruptions, if you use the right equipment, wire your server room with several dedicated circuits, and fix any electrical problems in your building. To determine your exposure, perform a risk assessment. We would be happy to assist you with any aspect of this problem. Just call 603-432-1603 or send a message.
Tip: Remove your computers from circuits that supply “heavy use” devices (e.g. motors, compressors, air conditioners and laser printers). Even a simple pencil sharpener can be dangerous. Resulting power fluctuations can affect a computer even if the voltage dip cannot be ‘seen’ (e.g. the lights in the room dimming). And if they don’t crash your PC, they can cause stresses that can shorten the life of its components.
Select Your Power Protection Equipment
There are two types of power protection equipment:
-
UPS
Uninterruptible power supply or UPS (used for computers). For a server, you must use a UPS. While most features are the same, you can select for runtime minutes. You can install software that will notify you and will shut down the server.
- Surge suppressor (used for printers, phones, network and AV equipment, and sometimes PCs). While you can use a simple surge suppressor for your PC for as little as $17.00, I recommend spending a little more for a desktop UPS. The Back-UPS® ES 8 Outlet from APC costs just $59.99 and gives you much better protection.
To determine the best equipment for your need, the APC company has many useful online tools, particularly:
- UPS devices product selector – Click the Small / Medium Business tab, mouse over the Selectors tab, and click UPS Selector.
- Surge protection product selector – Click the Small / Medium Business tab, mouse over the Selectors tab, and click Surge Protection Selector.
Tips
- Surge suppressors are like car brake disc pads. They wear out. Assume a two-year lifetime. Their components sacrifice themselves, incrementally for small surges or completely for a large surge. Newer units come with lights and audible alarms that tell you when they are defunct. You can use them as power strips for non-electronic equipment (drills, clocks, tree lights, etc.). Tim Carter has a good article on using surge suppressors throughout your house.
- A power strip provides NO protection. A defunct surge suppressor is functionally just a power strip.
- Replace your UPS battery within one or two years. The APC brand UPS has a two-year warranty including the battery. You can determine the year of manufacture by looking at the first two numbers of the serial number located on a white bar-code sticker on the rear of the unit. Most APC batteries are “User-Replaceable.”
- Eventually the other components in a UPS wear out, so I recommend replacing the battery only once, and then trading in the unit for a new one. APC has a trade-in program for batteries and for full UPS units for a decent price and they handle the recycling for you. See their UPS Upgrade Selector.
- Do not plug your computer into a generator during a power failure. The typical generator produces “dirty” power that can kill your PC.
We would be happy to assist you with any aspect of this problem. Just call 603-432-1603 or send a message.
Comments on this entry are closed.