July 1, 2003
Volume 1, Issue 7
    

Welcome to the Webspin Newsletter for July 1, 2003

UPS Shakedown.

When the power cuts out and your knee deep in a business project, the words "shoot" are probably not your first choice of words. Now that prices have slimmed down the costs of not having one become's apparent. We take a look at five UPS power supply's for your PC. We currently use the Cyberpower 825AVR. Information provided in this article is for comparing the differences in the devices, (although I do give a recommendation depending on the use) this is not a review other than the Cyberpower works well for our needs.

So how many watt power supply do you need? A CPU and motherboard will consume upwards of 100 watts alone. A mid tower with say three PCI cards three hard drives and a printer will consume 250W to 300W. You still have a monitor to support. A 300W UPS should handle most of your needs. Pick your margins by 20% to 25% for a buffer. Do not underestimate your needs because if your load surpasses your UPS capacity, you'll blow the UPS fuse which negates all the reasons you have one. Do not plug your InkJet's into your 300 W UPS, they drain massive amounts of juice. You'll need a 2,000VA UPS if your printing needs are that important.

Battery runtime will vary depending on the unit. We will discuss this with each UPS looked at in this article. Our Cyberpower will run 12 minutes on battery, with one AMD 1900XP, 21inch Sony monitor, and a 40gig USB external hard drive attached. This is all I need as I only use it to protect my work and my PC components. Yes your components do not like getting spiked anymore than your lost work does, so this is another very good reason to have a UPS. I have replaced three PC power supply's inside three different computers in three months for some reason. All of the power supply failures were directly related to a sudden spike in my home circuitry. Just the other day Maryls PC went south, and mine was laughing with the UPS taking the hit. I did not even notice the sudden spike, the UPS just took over for that split second and I resumed work, while Maryl lost what she was working on and the aggravation of the re-boot. I got the look on that one. Another trip to Best Buy is in my current to do list. The Cyberpower will only take three components on battery backup, and three power surge protected inputs. If you loose power completely, all of these UPS units discussed here will gently shutdown you computer once the battery depletes. If you want to continue your work in a four hour power outage, you may consider going to sears for a generator. These units are to protect your work and your PC components.

Most UPS are rated in VA (Volt Amps). The VA rating does not tell you much. What really matters are watts, and the conversion from volt amps to watts.

CyberPower 825AVR UPS Battery Backup Power Supply

Cyber Power 825AVR
$129.99
www.cyberpowersystems.com

This unit is the one we use here at Webspin. I got ours at Best Buy for $119.00 with a $20.00 rebate. The CyberPower 825 includes an 825VA rating, integrated line conditioning, and a 410Watt power rating. The 825 output is clean from my experience. Supports both RS-232 and USB cables for its Power Panel Plus Software. CyberPower provides in/out jacks for fax/modem and Ethernet, no coax. The battery charged fully in eight hours. This makes for a good low cost solution for protecting your gear and work. But for the more robust needs, you should look at maybe the Belkin. Battery runtime comes in at 12 minutes with an AMD AthlonXP 1900, 21 inch Sony Monitor and a 40gig USB external hard drive connected to the three battery linked receptacles. I use the other three surge protected receptacles for my second monitor, printer and scanner.

APC Back-UPS ES 725

APC Back-UPS ES 725
$99.99
www.apc.com

Considered one of the top names in UPSes. This unit is the lowest price of the five and sports a 450W rating. This model features an easily accessible battery area for hot swapping of cells, saving you the hassle of returning for a new battery. The ES 725 features eight total receptacles all of which are surge protected, but only four link to the battery. APC throws in surge protected Rj-45, Ethernet, and coax ports, and an USB 2.0 port with cable. For moderate home office load, this APC model looks to be the most cost effective of the five. Battery runtime comes in at 13 minutes.

Belkin Universal UPS 1200VA

Belkin Universal UPS 1200VA
$159.99
www.belkin.com

Four of the Belkin six surge protected receptacles receive battery power. This unit rates at 670W which gives you plenty of capacity for say two monitors and extra peripherals. Belkin also tosses in a voltage regulator as well as an RS232 serial, as well as a USB port. Belkin omits coax, but sports in\out jacks for Rj11 and Rj45 cabling. The 1200VA has a lengthy runtime with 28 minutes and a high load capacity. This may be your choice if you have a fully loaded system.

Para Systems SmartSine S 700

Para Systems SmartSine S 700
$319.00
www.minute-manups.com

The smartline from Para systems features a runtime form factor in league with the Belkin model. The S 700 is a tough sell for the home office user unless you plan on using motorized devices on battery backup. You have a 500W model that has an RS232 comm port, but no USB. All eight receptacles receive backup power and are both surge protected and line conditioned. However there is no coax or even Ethernet. For the small office or home systems this is not the UPS of choice, but if you have a medium to large scale business market it is. The S 700 is optimized for multiple user scenarios. This unit features a rear mounted expansion slot. The company offers several plug-in cards for functions such as simultaneous shutdown of up to three systems and environmental monitoring for temperature and humidity. So under the right circumstances, the Smartline S 700 may be a good investment.

Tripp Lite Smart550USB

Tripp Lite Smart550USB
$109.95
www.tripplite.com

The SmartTripp 550 shoots for the lower end of the desktop market. Coming in at 550VA\300W, so you would not want to chance this UPS with more than a moderate system. Tripp Lite does integrate line conditioning. A backup runtime of 17 minutes at half load. Three of the models receptacles are powered from the battery and tripp recommends that you plug in your monitor in one of the surge protected inputs. Not sure why they would recommend this, but anyway...The 550USB comes with some very smart software which monitors critical applications and system devices of your choice. If any of these are unresponsive for a specified period of time, or if the systems CPU load stays high or to low for an extended period, the WatchDog software will force an application or even the whole system to shutdown and restart. Hmm, maybe too smart for my tastes, but its there if you want to use it. The 550 comes with USB but no RS232. It does offer in/out phone line protection, but not Ethernet or coax. Primary system protection would not be my choice for this model, but it could work well for secondary PC's such as storage or network devices, printer servers, or web\e-mail servers.

There you have it. You can find all or some of these UPS battery backup power supply's in most commercial outlets such as Comp USA or Best Buys. I am really surprised that I did not get one of these sooner. All of our PC's here at Webspin will soon have one, especially Maryl's.

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