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I'm wondering what everyone's thoughts are regarding whether UPS units are enough to protect sensitive electronics such as Mac Pro towers, iMacs and server room equipment.



A couple of weeks ago I was researching UPS systems to replace an aging Belkin UPS of mine. With this UPS I am protecting a 2010 Mac Pro and RAID. I read that UPS systems don't really provide much power protection beyond that which a $30.00 hardware surge protector would provide - they just offer protection from data loss caused by improper shutdowns.



As usual I settled on an APC BackUps Pro 1500.



Now fast forward a few days to a client of mine. They have had a few lightning strikes in recent weeks that have caused some big disruption. The phone system needed to be rebooted. Their Fiery was effected to the point that the technician thought it might need to be replaced, but in the end it came back to life. And now two brand-new Mac Pro towers have gone schizophrenic. One to the point that Apple is going to replace it, the other I haven't had time to thoroughly check out before taking it to Apple.



All of this equipment is attached to dedicated APC BackUps Pro 1500 units.



So my question is what (if anything) do people do for power protection beyond UPS systems?



Thank you!

There are different types of UPS's



Offline/Standby - read: cheap and nasty. basically the protected equipment is connected to mains power and then when power fails the UPS switches over to the battery using a inverter to power the equipment. pretty nasty



Line interactive - read: better than offline, probably ok for consumer/prosumer stuff. this basically uses a couple of transformers an some smarts to provide a consistent voltage to the equipment, so that brownouts of under/over voltage does not hit the equipment, instead the equipment gets a steady 240v/120v. the equipment is still connected to mains power, but the use of the transformers and smarts keeps the voltages consistent.



online/double conversion: read: best. These are the best option but generally you only see them in server rooms for LOTS of equipment. These basically make all the equipment work off the battery the entire time, so it prevents any mains power going to the device full stop. that way the equip is protected from any mains fluctuations or what have you



after this you start getting into diesel generators which is probably a bit over the top for your setup ;)



If you want to stay with APC, I would recommend the Smart-UPS online models which for a macpro and raid setup i'd probably look at the 1kva or 2kva model

@calumhunter Thank you for the info. And sorry for the delay in response. Been a hard couple of days.

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