Protect your gear!

Surge suppression, power conditioning and battery backup are often the most neglected but most critical parts of any technology investment. In this article I'll discuss the necessity of having them.

For my computer, I use a Belkin F6C1500 1500VA 830 Watts 8 Outlets UPS. It runs my high powered computer, wireless router, 22" monitor, etc for at least 5 minutes in case of a power outage.

Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
A UPS is important because most PCs have problems if they are not turned off gracefully. This is especially so because information is constantly being processed in volatile memory (RAM) before being stored to the hard drive. There are chances your critical system files could become corrupted, your game files, etc if it happens in the middle of a write operation. What if it happens while the computer is updating the file allocation table (FAT)? I have had computers require a repair of the OS in order to run again but you never know what open files have lost. I hope you saved that MS Office or OpenOffice document before the crash because it might not be recoverable.

The UPS isn't designed to run your system for 2 hours. You would need a generator for that. What the UPS will do is give you ample time to shut down your programs and turn off the computer system before your battery runs out...assuming of course you are at your computer, or with software that can be installed, you can tell your computer to initiate a shutdown when you have a set amount of battery time left even if you are away.

What to look for in a UPS and how much do I really need?
That will be determined by the power rating of each component inside your computer, your monitor, router and anything else you are plugging into the UPS. There are devices you can use to measure this exactly and it will change depending on how heavily you are using your power supply and video card and processor especially in heavy graphics oriented games. The Power Rating on the individual components is very conservative and can be a good place to start.

If you can get a UPS that conditions the power coming in as well, you are good. Most UPS's will handle power surges and brownouts, etc.

I recommend this beast which will run even a high-end system for about 3-5 minutes. It is currently on sale for $30 off with free shipping. Shipping on these things can be very expensive because of the weight of the batteries so that is very nice.

CyberPower Intelligent LCD Series GreenPower UPS CP1500AVRLCD UPS