How To Find the Right UPS for Your Office

Today my office went dark, well actually just the electronics in my office. I work in what used to be a dorm, built years before my birth, this leads to a few peculiarities in day to day operations. In the winter the heat comes mainly from a space heater due to vents which have long since collapsed. The power to my office is also a cantankerous beast in that it isn’t quite up to par with my computer using needs. This results in darkened monitors, under the breath cursing and the occasional desk banging.

The loss of 20 minutes of work finally got to me today and I was able to get approval for a UPS or Uninterruptible Power Supply for my computer. An UPS works much like the battery on your laptop in that it can supply your essential computing equipment with 5-30 minutes of time to save and safely shut down. Granted you can get an UPS which may last longer but for most home users these shorter backup times will suffice. Many of these Uninterruptible Power Supplies allow for USB connectivity to shut down your computer unattended in the event the power fails when you are away from your desk for an extended time. I haven’t had a chance to test this feature to see if it will save any open files before shutdown. I assume the utility can handle saving standard document types through the standard autosave function, but custom reporting software like I use may be left out. This feature is handy, and if I am away form my desk for more than a few minutes I can guarantee that I have already saved any report I am working on!

Great, you know that an UPS will solve your power outage problems decreasing any money going into the company swear jar all while improving your productivity by not losing recent work when the power fails. You may however be put off by the options available in UPS units; VA, Watts, UPS Connectivity, outlets, networking, amongst others. My biggest concern was the VA and the Watts, and what ratings I needed to handle only my main rig. Thankfully APC who manufactures UPS units provides an interactive webpage which allows you to find the UPS that fits your needs.

When the breaker pops I need power to the middle monitor
and its attached PC otherwise there will be trouble!

Once you find the unit that fits your needs it is simply a matter of either finding the unit they recommend online or finding a unit with similar specs from your favorite vendor and manufacturer. Through January 26, 2008 you can save 12% on UPS and many other items in-store at Staples with the 12% off Staples Winter Customer Appreciation coupon(pdf).

Do you have any power outage horror stories or advice on selecting an UPS? I know working in a college tech center for several years having UPS on the lab computers would have saved loads of frustrations, especially when the computer was essentially reset to default on boot. This meant if the user had never saved their 10 page English paper all was lost, it wasn’t even worth going through the temp files. UPS would have given the users the several seconds required to save the document.