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Know Your APCs

As previously mentioned, the king of the heap in power products is APC — American Power Conversion. Once premium priced across their lines, APC have delivered a huge variety of options that can meet the power needs of almost any individual or business.

Based in Rhode Island, these guys have been around since 1981 and more or less created the UPS business. APC stuff is available at both Tiger and CDW as well as hundreds of other retailers like Staples, Office Max and Wal-mart. Almost all APC products come with a $50,000 to $150,000 equipment protection warranty, which helps make up the premium price in our opinion. (Note that these warranties never protect data)

CyberPower, SmartPro, and ULTRA are among the quality competition for APC, though not every company makes every kind of unit.

Power is nothing, without power

The most important things to understand when buying an “uninterruptible” power supply are:
· What exactly you need the unit to do
· How often you probably need it to do it

The main categorical difference among units is their wattage. Generally speaking 700 Volt Amp units and smaller are viewed as one group, and 700VA and higher as another. Roughly speaking this is “desktop” units and “network” units although wattage needs vary. Bear in mind that most stand-alone UPS solutions are intended to allow you to backup your system and shut down safely, not keep running any great length of time (which would require a generator). Think of them somewhat like a donut spare.

Desktop examples

Desktop UPS systems were once rare and expensive but are now common and relatively cheap. These units typically include a world-class surge protector so that is a piece of equipment you will not need to also purchase, depending on how many outlets you need. For example: If you need to keep a desktop going in the event of a short-term power failure, you need to decide, for example, if you want to safely shut the computer down, or actually keep it up and running off the emergency batteries.

The APC Back-UPS line designed for a single desktop ranges in price from about $39 to about $199 as of this writing.

For $39 (Model Back-UPS ES 350) you get about 50 minutes of runtime with three battery-powered outlets, three additional surge-protected outlets, 200/350 watts/VA and a $50k equipment insurance policy. Each of the price points up to $199 (Back-UPS RS 1500) gets you more outlets, more peak wattage, longer runtimes to 110 minutes, and more insurance.

If you are buying a UPS for all of your core equipment, you almost certainly do not need to buy suppressor equipment additionally. All UPS units are suppressors and some even have dedicated outlets for extra equipment that goes beyond the UPS power supply capacity.

If you don’t have a UPS or you have only some equipment connected to it, you want all your equipment plugged into suppressors, including RJ11 phone type plugs, cable and coaxial lines, and Ethernet cables. Any outside line that can carry a charge can fry your expensive stuff in a lightning strike and protection is so cheap it’s truly foolish not to have it.

Protect the family Joules

The most important thing to understand when buying surge suppressors is “how much of a jolt can the thing take” and that is a rating expressed in Joules. As a rule, the higher the rating, the better off you will be. Joules ratings run from a few hundred up to about 3400 or even more.
Since the top rating will cost under $50 for even the best brand, get the best.

As discussed previously, this is not a place to cut corners. Saving 10 bucks on a cheaper switch can cost thousands or more in damaged equipment.

· Buy the highest Joules rating your budget allows
· Buy high-quality name-brand stuff like the examples on the next page

While most power supply and UPS makers make stand-alone surge protection products, so do a lot of other people.

In addition to APC and its competitors, we also like Belkin (available everywhere in the free world) and Power Sentry (available at Tiger and at stores like Costco and Sam’s).

Tripp Lite is among the “gold standard” professional grade manufacturers — nice quality but expect to pay for it.

Surge protection products are made by many lighting and supply companies, and can range in price from literally a few dollars to literally hundreds, as the examples below (which we like all of, for different situations) amply attest.

In case your fans are not really doing an adequate job, there are several ways to help them out. The most popular units for office environments are liquid cooling systems, which work by adding a medium that draws heat faster than a fan alone can blow it.

Hard drives generate a lot of heat — especially as spindle speeds have gotten faster. Very few products exist to focus on this but the ones that do are simple and work well.

Laptops can get very warm too. While this is usually not a problem for the machine, it may be a problem for you, as we have seen some laptops that got so hot they were uncomfortable to type on.

Laptop cooling systems a few years ago were bulky and relatively expensive. Both of those have changed, and there is a great system that requires no extra power supply for about 15-20 dollars.

Finally, if you want something a little fancier — that brings additional USB outlets to boost — the Notepal might work for your notebook, pal!

Computer Cooling Product Reviews:

Kingwin Aquastar.

It’s a typical high-quality liquid cooling unit, that dramatically reduces CPU heat versus a standard air-moving fan. It’s a little tricky to install, but if your computer runs hot, it could be worth the effort.

Price: About $110

AOC dual Hard Drive Cooler.

This is simple idea that accomplishes something great — whereas fans and liquid units are focused on processor heat, this — for under ten bucks — keeps your hard drives running cool too.

Price: About $10

Kinamax Notebook Cooler

USB powered and lightweight, this is a great inexpensive solution for the laptop that has the hots for you.

Price: About $15

Cooler Master Notepal.

It’s another quality laptop cooling unit, but in addition to the fans it offers extra USB jacks and an angled work surface. It’s aluminum and like the Kinamax is USB powered.

Price: About $35

All products can be found online at such retailers as Tigerdirect.com and Bestbuy.com