Being into computers and what not, I have a love fascination with certain computer hardware. No, it's not the CPU, or RAM, or hard drive, or even a nice dedicated sound card. It is in fact the UPS. These things are fantastic. I bought a CyberPower CP850PFCLCD last year right before Summer since I knew that during the Summer is when I get most power outages and I was tired of having the potential of destroying my expressive desktop. I have read on forum after forum people's computer's biting the dust after a power failure. So I knew I had to invest a good quality UPS. When I got the UPS I made sure to test it. As soon as I flipped the power strip to off, the UPS kicked in like nothing ever happened. It was awesome! Right now I have two monitors, a gaming PC with an Antec 750 Gold PSU, and Logitech Z5300e 5.1 speakers connected to it and the UPS states 20 minutes of battery life. About 15 while playing a game. Plenty of time to safely close out of what I'm doing and shut down the PC normally during a power outage.
I did measure the current draw from the UPS with my homemade AC line splitter and clamp meter and was surprised there wasn't much draw at all. I even emailed CyberPower asking them how much draw there was on battery charging and they informed me about 20 watts.
If you don't have a UPS, I highly recommend it. Just make sure you get the right one based on your PSU. Since I have an active PSU, the UPS I bought supports that. If not sure, email the manufacturer. That's what I did. Like I said, I have read many computer forum posts of people's computers being hosed due to a power outage. It actually happened to my netbook's power adapter during a power outage. I use a netbook in the kitchen that uses the program PhoneTray and acts as an FTP server who's storge is on a SD card and runs a Team Speak server when I use it. The netbook is on 24/7 and has been for about the last 4 years. When I had that power outage, the power adapter just went bust. So to eBay I went and bought a replacement. This despite having the netbook connected to an Ace Hardware branded surge protector. Wonder if I should upgrade that to something better?
I did measure the current draw from the UPS with my homemade AC line splitter and clamp meter and was surprised there wasn't much draw at all. I even emailed CyberPower asking them how much draw there was on battery charging and they informed me about 20 watts.
If you don't have a UPS, I highly recommend it. Just make sure you get the right one based on your PSU. Since I have an active PSU, the UPS I bought supports that. If not sure, email the manufacturer. That's what I did. Like I said, I have read many computer forum posts of people's computers being hosed due to a power outage. It actually happened to my netbook's power adapter during a power outage. I use a netbook in the kitchen that uses the program PhoneTray and acts as an FTP server who's storge is on a SD card and runs a Team Speak server when I use it. The netbook is on 24/7 and has been for about the last 4 years. When I had that power outage, the power adapter just went bust. So to eBay I went and bought a replacement. This despite having the netbook connected to an Ace Hardware branded surge protector. Wonder if I should upgrade that to something better?