A bang, and the power’s gone. And with it possibly valuable photos, music or documents on PCs, network drives or servers. Hard to believe: Power outages and voltage peaks are responsible for half of all computer damage and data loss.
Although power outages in German electricity networks are rare today, in the event of faults, it can still happen that entire regions are without electricity for a couple of hours. This type of power failure is even predicted by the electricity producers themselves, as the German power grid has to be restructured. And of course technical problems can sometimes lead to a short circuit and a power failure in your own home.
Voltage peaks, on the other hand, are a relatively common phenomenon. This causes short loads that are spread over the power supply and leads to voltage fluctuations. IT systems are particularly sensitive to this. Even the smallest of failures in the millisecond range often cause great damage.
How you can protect your devices from these hazards, is explained in this guide.
Better too much than too little
The solution is a UPS: An uninterruptible power supply does not protect you from very long power failures over several hours, but in case of emergency it ensures sufficient energy for a short bridging time. In simple terms, a UPS is a large battery with a certain operating time.
If the power goes off or if the voltage falls below a certain threshold value, the integrated electronics activate the emergency power supply for the connected devices within a few milliseconds. This gives you a few minutes to save open files and shut down the devices properly.
UPS also compensate for voltage peaks. How to find the right model:
- First list all of the consumers you want to connect, for example, computers, servers, storage and networking systems. Sum up the performance of all systems in watts. The UPS should be able to support the calculated result.
- In order to be prepared for a longer power failure, the UPS must provide power for as long as it takes to safely and properly shut down servers, computers and other devices. Some devices even come with software that allows connected computers to be automatically shut down. The battery of the UPS must be correspondingly large. Tip: “UPS calculators” from leading manufacturers are available on the Internet — these suggest UPS according to your IT requirements.
Various UPS classes
- Offline systems: The simplest and most cost effective class. Devices of this type typically have large batteries and compensate for voltage peaks. Disadvantage: They often require a few moments to register the power failure. They are therefore only suitable for systems that can withstand power failures of up to 8 milliseconds, known as robust consumers.
- Line Interactive Systems: These devices respond faster to failures than offline systems, the switchover time is on average between two to four milliseconds. Disadvantage: They are appropriate for computers, but not for highly sensitive systems such as servers or storage hardware.
- Online systems: These systems filter the current. In plain text: They switch between the power port and the consumers, take on the complete power supply and constantly deliver the same voltage and power supply — they are therefore constantly online. These systems therefore have no switchover times in the event of a power failure and are the ideal solution for highly sensitive equipment.
Image: reichelt
