Re: [tlug] Uninterrupted power supply unit recommendations

[Kalin KOZHUHAROV <me.kalin@example.com>]

Hi,

I am not specialist on UPS or power, so take the ideas below as my 13
years experience in Japan running various loads of equipment.
At work I do have a few dedicated UPS-es, but at home I ditched the
last one 3-4 years ago.

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 13:43, Simon Gibson <simon.gibson@example.com> wrote:
> A UPS is a good investment imho.
It may be a good investment, but isn't it a bit of overkill given the situation?

3 PCs, running at least 300W (500W peak?) will set you in the 1kVA
class at least. If you want to protect monitors and the rest of the
peripherals (and assuming you don't have an old laser printer :-) )
2kVA may do.
Those are huge, heavy, often with dedicated plugs and take up space
and are expensive even 2nd hand.

Investing in a dedicated surge protector seems wiser for me, if you
are running proper filesystems and not using mission critical data
(and have off-line backup). Go to Yodobashi/BicCamera/etc. and look in
the extension cord sections. You should be safe with any dedicated
APC/Sanwa/Elecom surge protector. You'll loose the ability to run when
power goes down, but you'll protect your hardware. Don't forget to run
other metal cables (wall <=> ADSL/DTE box) through the device as well.

BTW, how many amperes is your cabling at home (see your TEPCO bill or
check fuses)?
Older homes are still 20A (@100V = 2 kVA), some are 40A (4kVA), but I
have lived in a 15A old house...

And do you have proper earth connection (i.e. 3-prone plugs) somewhere
on the wall?
Some apartments have only on few places (like outlets for washing
machine, microwave) and with special bolt to fix a green wire to.
Investing some time (money?) in proper earthing will save you from
many AC power problems (but you still need a surge protector).

Cheers,
Kalin.