Power Surges
Power Surges can be caused by many things, but they can have quite an effect on your computer hardware. The surges in current can damage your hardware and cause loss of data. The best defence against this threat is to have a surge protector plugged into the wall and this allows you to plug your computer into the surge protector. This gives the best protection against the issues that plague unprotected systems.
Brownouts
Brownouts can be another cause of data loss in a company. The momentary loss of power can cause great damage to a computer system; the power loss; even though it may be momentary; data loss could occur on sensitive computer systems. Again; there exists a technology that can protect against this threat. A UPS can supply uninterrupted power to your computer system and prevent any data loss.
Blackouts
Blackouts are the total loss of power. This is an obvious danger as you could lose data when the power is lost. The solution to this is to deploy an Uninterruptible Power supply that can power your system while it is without power. A moderately-priced UPS can power your system for 15 minutes, this gives enough power to save your work and backup critical files before you lose power. A UPS that is more expensive can power your system for up to 3 hours, this is very expensive though.
Awareness of the condition of the power supplied to your site is very important. Software such as UPSMON Pro can be used on Linux to interface with a UPS and then manage a computer system in the event of a power loss. This would help safeguard your data and allow a graceful shutdown of the system to avoid data loss. This is very important if you were doing a critical disk operation like Testdisk and then the data was lost, or some kind of hdparm command that would damage data if it was interrupted. Any kind of operating system process that involved data transfer like moving files from one place to another would be very bad if it was critically interrupted part of the way through. Another option is PowerPanel® Personal Linux. This is a simple command-line daemon to control a UPS system from a Linux PC. This would be a very good alternative to manage a UPS while using a Linux PC.
This is a simple formula for calculating the time a UPS can run before it runs out of power, but it is not very long.
backup time(hour)=battery capacity(Ah)*0.9*10.5*battery quantity(EA)/UPS power(W) |
But it really is only long enough to properly shut down the machine and save your work. Modern computers draw a lot of power, so you will not have long to properly take care of the shutdown procedure. So be vigilant.
I’ve done in home service for 13years back in the 80s or so. I’ve told folk to unplug their stuff. They did. Lighting burned a path from/to the plug laying on the floor because the cable line was unplugged. Their carpet was slagged.
I’ve seen old TVs that had the metal mesh mask deformed so had permanent misaligned colors.
I’ve seen Tripplite, the best surge suppressor you could get at the time be completely slagged inside but it worked. Don’t trust the low end chinese suppressors. I’m not sure even Tripplite is any good anymore.
The following setup works well for me. I was lucky to get the ferroresonant supply free. You can leave it out but get a beefier UPS preferably one with some active suppression and brownout mitigation.
Install a whole house surge suppressor. The electric company offers them but they’re kinda scammy. I believe you can have them installed by a electrician and perhaps either save money or get a longer warranty. There are ones for industrial panels so you can go that route if you’re running a business.
Get a Ferroresonant transformer for isolation, brownout prevention and surge prevention. These are hideously expensive and eat power but are marvelous for surge and brownout prevention.
You should have everything on the ferroresonant supply even the UPS as it will soak all sorts of power fluctuations and will help prevent brownouts down to around 85 volts.
If you have fiber, feel blessed as it does not invite surges. Everything else does so heavily protect cable, phone, DSL, etc.