Always Use Protection… UPS Explained!
When it comes to protecting your tech, there are plenty of things that probably come to mind. Phone cases, insurance plans, backups – there are a wide range of options that most people use to safeguard against damage and loss. But prevention is better than the cure and one scenario many of us neglect to consider is unexpected issues with the electricity supply. Depending on where you live, this might be more of a problem than you might think, but even if your home’s power is stable it’s a good idea to always use protection…
How electricity is delivered to you is a rather complicated matter, but in short a power station normally generates it, sends it at insanely high voltage to a substation (think 400,000 volts), then that drops it often to a few intermediary voltages (132kV, then 11kV) before finally converting it down to 240V and into your house. The trick is that the power has to be generated instantly, as it’s needed. Too much demand and too little supply causes the voltage to drop, which can cause problems, as can too much supply as that raises the voltage. The biggest issue is when you get things like lightning strikes on power lines or other issues that can cause surges and outages – both of which can lead to corrupted data or outright fried devices.
So, what can you do? Many of you probably already use a surge-protected power strip – this is a great option as any even tiny power surges can be sent to ground instead of into your PC, but it’s far from perfect. It would be unable to help if the electricity supply were to suddenly cut, but that’s where my newest purchase comes in, an uninterruptible power supply, or UPS.
In essence, a UPS is pretty simple. It’s just a battery that acts as an intermediary between the mains power and the power output, along with a bit of protection circuitry thrown in there. To be specific, the Eaton Ellipse ECO unit I bought is what’s called an “Offline” UPS. During normal use, the mains input is connected via protection circuitry to your tech but, if it detects a loss of power, the UPS will switch almost instantly to battery power. The change is fast enough that any devices connected don’t notice the switch and will continue to run even if your lights have gone out.
You can also get more high-tech options, including what’s called a “Line-interactive” UPS. These can not only run off the battery but also change its input behaviour based on the voltage input. If the mains voltage is unstable, the UPS can change how much current it draws to counteract the drop so the connected devices are none the wiser.
This kind of protection is especially crucial for storage servers which are more sensitive to power loss and instability, as a hard shutdown during a write operation could mean a whole lot of problems like corrupted data or filesystem. For the average Joe, a UPS might be a touch overkill. A surge protected power strip is likely just fine, although if you do run a NAS at home, or if you are in an area where power is less stable, having a UPS hooked up to your PC can be the difference between your components getting fried after just a few months of use or not.
The other key benefit is that they often are able to communicate to a system if the power is out – this Eaton unit uses USB and works with the UNRAID UPS management tool, and can report to the NAS when the power has gone out, and if the battery level dips low enough it can then tell the NAS to safely shut down – rather than the alternative of losing power 30 minutes earlier.
There are a few things you should know about UPS’s though, namely their capacity ratings. This is somewhat infuriating, as it’s functionally a marketing tool more than anything. Basically, most UPS’s are listed with a “Volt-Ampere” rating. Not to be confused with Watts, which is volts times amps, Volt-Amperes is volts times amps… Well, it’s the RMS (root-mean squared) voltage, times the RMS current, to tell you the ‘apparent power’, rather than Watts which is a measure of ‘real power’. This mostly comes to the power factor, which is just Watts over Volt-Amperes, but for most electronics Watts is the appropriate measure.
The size you buy determines a couple of things, first if it can support that kind of load at all, and second how long the battery backup can last for. I bought the 1600VA model, which is also rated at 1000W, which I picked as even running both my UNRAID NAS, and my main desktop, I’d expect something like 20-30 minutes of runtime before they’d need to shut down. Currently, just with the NAS connected, the dashboard thinks I have just shy of 50 minutes of runtime should the power go out. I’m pretty happy with that.
In short, buy the biggest size you can for the most runtime and general capacity. Most gaming PCs – when not gaming – shouldn’t be drawing more that 100W, and the runtime isn’t likely to be all that important as much as a safe shutdown. For me, the security and safety it provides is the main benefit, and in theory the ability to keep working even if the power goes out is a nice, close second. I spent around £300 for this unit, although the lower rated models can go for more like £150, so I’m pretty happy with that as a good piece of mind.
