Do you use a battery backup?

[tmette]

I remember my old roommate from college had one, and it's the only time I've seen someone use one. He got one when his parents bought him a brand new Sony desktop computer. The power went out maybe...3 times or so whenever I was using my desktop throughout one year of college. I'm debating on whether it's worth it.

Does it help with your energy bill too? Anyone have any experience with these? My primary computer is my desktop now that I'm out of college. My laptop just sits on the coffee table to charge my iPod and PS3 controller. :)

[Phrea]

Answer to title: No.

[cguy]

I imagine that not worrying whether one battery charge will last enough to get the work done is very nice, IF you use the laptop a lot.

[tmette]

I imagine that not worrying whether one battery charge will last enough to get the work done is very nice, IF you use the laptop a lot.

I don't use my laptop very much when I'm at home. I would much rather use my desktop PC.

[ssam]

I remember my old roommate from college had one, and it's the only time I've seen someone use one. He got one when his parents bought him a brand new Sony desktop computer. The power went out maybe...3 times or so whenever I was using my desktop throughout one year of college. I'm debating on whether it's worth it.


do you mean a UPS?



Does it help with your energy bill too? Anyone have any experience with these? My primary computer is my desktop now that I'm out of college. My laptop just sits on the coffee table to charge my iPod and PS3 controller. :)

why use a laptop to charge your portable devices if you are worried about your energy bill?

anyway it wont save you any energy, it will actually waste a bit. but if your electricity prices varies though the day you could charge when it is cheap.

[Joe of loath]

Don't bother. Just do all your work in a dropbox folder, and if the power goes out, keep working on your laptop.

[Lucradia]

No. My documents are all on a flash drive, the important ones anyway. If my system goes down, my netbook still works, but my Internet doesn't.

[timZZ]

Yes I do .. I just recently bought a home and soon as a thunder-storm is around.

On ... Off ... On ... Off goes the power.

I purchased multiple APC battery back-up's to protect the various storage and desktop machines.

[Joe of loath]

It may be something to remember, though, that often UPSes are thrown out because the batteries have died. I have a £500, 700w UPS sat under my bed, because someone overloaded it and the batteries swelled. I had to take it to bits to get the batteries out, but I soldered on some terminals for a couple of car batteries, and if I ever need lots of power, I've got it.

[Ranko Kohime]

No. My documents are all on a flash drive, the important ones anyway. If my system goes down, my netbook still works, but my Internet doesn't.
Unless you're writing to the flash drive when the power goes out, then POOF, your drive is corrupted.

To the OP: the above is what a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) is for. If power goes out when you're writing to solid state disks, it tends to corrupt them. It doesn't do platter drives any favor either, as they're typically unable to park the heads in a sudden power-off.

UPS are not for running desktops while the power is off, they're for covering temporary glitches in the power which can corrupt data, and during longer power outages to give you just enough time to save what you're doing and power down gracefully.

[Johnsie]

I was given an APC but I never use it. Too cheap to buy all the kettle leads for it.

[Joe of loath]

I was given an APC but I never use it. Too cheap to buy all the kettle leads for it.

Buy one and wire it to an extension cord. A bit of a hack, but if you fuse it and make sure it's done properly it'll be safe.

[sostentado]

YEs!!!

[Paqman]

I used to. I got one when I was living in a house that had pre-paid electricity, so it used to cut out when the credit ran out. These days that's not an issue. I recently got rid of it in favour of decent surge protection, which I feel is more of a threat. The old UPS used to suck a few watts as well, so i'm saving myself money.

[BrokenKingpin]

I use one for my media center/home server. I am not sure it saves on your energy bill, but it is great for data protection. It is also convenient that I don't have to startup the media center every time the power flickers.

You can get a decent UPS for under a hundred bucks.

[false truths]

Since I use a laptop for all of my work, I don't need to worry about a UPS. For a desktop, yes, I'd get one. I don't intend to do much on a desktop, though. My laptop has just enough charge in the battery to wrap up what I'm doing and shut down properly should the power go out. Using a cloud program solves this, too, since your work is stored online in realtime.

[Gerontion]

Here in Thailand, we get power cuts pretty regularly, especially now the rains have arrived, so yes - it's a lifesaver.

[mr clark25]

I use one for my media center/home server. I am not sure it saves on your energy bill, but it is great for data protection. It is also convenient that I don't have to startup the media center every time the power flickers.

You can get a decent UPS for under a hundred bucks.


if you know where to look, you can get a "broken one" that has bad batteries in it for something near (if not) free. wire up a couple of lawn mower batteries to it, and it will work just fine, and it will last longer during an outage than normal.


i use a UPS unit on my 2 servers so that i can have enough time to shut them down properly, and not risk any of my data backups.

[tgm4883]

I have multiple UPS's for the multiple systems I have in my house.

[Bandit]

I have and use a APC BackUPS 500 and wouldnt even turn my PC on without it plugged in to it.

The power lines in my area are crap.. Just pure crap.. Although surges are rare except during thunderstorms, we get more then enough brown outs where the power drops below the 110v range causing electronics to over heat. When this happens my UPS kicks in and keep the voltage at 110v. Thus preventing my PC and components from overheating.

So yea a UPS is very important. But keep in mind there are two types of UPS's. Some that keep going all the time, thus is the power drops it never stops feeding your system and others that have to switch over then feed the system. How do you know what you have. If the power goes out a passive one will never drop from 110v and thus your monitor will never flicker. If its not passive, your system will still keep going but for a split second your power will drop then the battery takes over. Just quick enough for the monitor to flash but not for the system to shutdown.

[SoFl W]

When I lived in Florida the lights would flicker often. I would hear the UPS kick on and back off as the lights flickered. It wasn't for the major outages, it was for the frequent power flickers.
A UPS isn't not designed for you to keep working, it is made for you to save your work and shut down your equipment properly. Those batteries are not so great if they get drained, even after a recharge. At work the city used to have frequent power outages and after a while the batteries wouldn't last very long at all.

[Bandit]

When I lived in Florida the lights would flicker often. I would hear the UPS kick on and back off as the lights flickered. It wasn't for the major outages, it was for the frequent power flickers.
A UPS isn't not designed for you to keep working, it is made for you to save your work and shut down your equipment properly. Those batteries are not so great if they get drained, even after a recharge. At work the city used to have frequent power outages and after a while the batteries wouldn't last very long at all.
True that true that...