Selecting a Battery Backup for Your Computer

A cheap power strip might protect equipment from power surges, but it does nothing to help when the power goes out and your system comes to a halting crash.  Your hard drive is constantly reading and writing, even when you're not doing anything on your computer.  Your hard drive, where all our critical files and data reside, can be irreparably damaged when it is in the middle of a read/write and there is an unexpected power loss, such as due to a lightening storm.  Although you may not notice obvious damage immediately, slowness in your computer or when things stop working / working correctly as they used to are signs there has been damage.  Additionally, during storms and even on clear, sunny days, there are power surges and brown outs (lulls in power).  These can damage your computers electronics as well.  Although a surge protector can protect again power surges, it won't do anything about brown outs.  

In order to protect your computer against power lulls and interruptions, you need a battery backup, appropriately named an Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS). UPS units provide a buffer against power supply interruptions ranging from a few minutes to an hour or more depending on the size of the unit.

A simple way to think about the importance of a UPS unit is to think about working on a desktop or laptop computer. You’re at home, your computer is plugged into an appropriate surge protection strip, and you’re busily finishing up some reports for work. A summer storm suddenly knocks the power out. Although the lights go out, your work on the computer is uninterrupted because it switched over to the UPS battery power seamlessly when the flow of electricity from the power cord vanished. You now have plenty of time to save your work and gracefully shut down your machine, preventing any damage.

For more information on UPS's, read this article.  
For help with purchasing and installing, call The GoTo Tech Guru!

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