Hello,
does anyone have a reference to small power back up systems for power outages ala Callifornia? Reviews? comparisons? thanks rotuts

I have a few APC UPS' at the office and we have never had problems with them... They should give you about 5-10 minutes depending on how many things you have plugged into it...

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Promote Chicken Randomness

I have 1 of the same things (dunno model or stats) hooked up to a P3 Xeon Noevll Nowhere server (the thing is a MONSTER... 45 gig * 2, 512 meg, 8 internal tape drives, dunno how many drive bays, P3 Xeon 550MHz) and it can stay powered for about 7 minutes. Enough time for a safe shutdown. It is one hell of a comp though, if I put a water cooling system in it, it'd simply make it a water heater
A normal Mac should get quite some time out of it. This particular power backup is only Windows compatible or something I think...

Cipher13

[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 02-10-2001).]

If you need auto shutdown, and don't have too much to protect, the APC with USB (get the right one!) sounds good. Nobody really supports Safe Mac Shutdown Software. Too bad.

If you don't need auto-shutdown, you can get any APC that fits the job. I run my G3/333 beige with two monitors and an Epson 900 off of a 650, and it keeps it running enough for me to finish what I am workingon and shutdown safely. Of course, this is an attended machine, not a server.

There are other brands like belkin, but you really need to do your own research as only you know your needs. Be sure to do the math right, and don't be conservative in your estimate. It is much easier to grow into a backup, than to decide what doesn't get backup power.

Remember that most UPS's only have 3-4 backup outlets, the rest are just surge protected.

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-Keith

-Whatever you do, do the research.

Don't y'all be getting brand-specific. That bit about plugs is not only brand specific, it's model specific. You have to check the specs on whatever device you're looking at before you know what you'd have.

APC is only one of several manufacturers. I went with Best Power over a year ago. Bought a 1KVA Best 610 with an external battery for longer duration. It's a much higher quality UPS than any APC device I've ever heard of. It's also much more than I would have thought anyone just powering a Mac would need, but now I see what's going on in California. Y'all need to be able to last up to 4 hours, worst case, yes?

If you size a UPS for that kind of requirement, you'll buy a bigger UPS, but your computers will never notice a power outtage. Mine certainly don't. I bought waaaaaay more than I needed, just for such a situation as y'all have got out there. Haven't had to test it for the full duration yet, only for up to around 45 minutes. My computers never notice, and I stay on-line or whatever. The last time it happened, it occurred to me that my computers would keep running but I would freeze. Haven't figured out how to solve that one yet.

I don't worry about shutdown software because my method is to outlast any normal power outtage. I don't expect that I could out last an outtage caused by a massive storm, where the power is out for days, but that's so rare that it's not (IMO) worth buying for. I figure that in such a situation, my computers would be the least of my problems.

[This message has been edited by denim (edited 02-12-2001).]

I have been wrestling with finding a USB equipped UPS with autoshutdown capabilities for many months. Several vendors are claiming the ability, but APC is the only one that actually seems to work. They claim they are working on more models with added capacity. The Belkin is useless, and I had an engineer at MGE do some testing for me to prove that their autoshutdown is crap as well. I believe one company actually pulled the claim of Mac compatibility from their web site after talking to me. The trouble is actually with Apple, apparently. They must have an API for UPS integration into the power manager in 9.0.4 -->> The result is that when the UPS shuts down the Mac, it appears to the user that someone yanked the cord from the wall, but on restart no message appears that you did not shut down properly. As a result, unless the UPS company builds on the low level support to provide graceful application shutdown, all open document changes are lost (but they consider this Mac compatible). Or, in our case what is worse, is that the backup tape is not "closed" properly, and cannot ever be appended to :-( APC claims they are working on adding many of the features that are included on the Windoze side to the Mac, but for now it is VERY basic. There is not even any ability to control the timing of application and hardware shutdown.