Where there is lightning, there are power outages and surges, and in the world of technology, where there are power outages and surges, there surely are problems that will follow.

This brings up an aspect of business and residential computing that is far too often ignored: Proper UPS/Surge Protection, and Backups.

This month, I’ll focus on the first problem, power outages and surges:

Simply stated, any piece of technology in your home and business that you care about should be properly protected by at least a surge protector. Ideally, if it’s an important enough (or expensive enough) component, you would install a unit that also provides power conditioning and a battery backup.

Surge protectors operate on a pretty simple principle – they provide a barrier between protected devices and excessively high amounts of electricity. If a surge comes through the outlet that they are plugged into, they have internal circuitry to minimize or eliminate the damage that it could cause if passed through to your computer, monitor, or flat screen TV.

The next step up from a surge protector is what is referred to as a power conditioner. These devices are more expensive than a traditional surge protector, but also do a good job of not only protecting your components from surges, but also regulating power (believe it or not, but too low of an amount of power to your device can often cause as much of a problem as too high). These devices can also filter out interference and other noise in the power lines that may affect the operation of your components, such as high pitched frequencies or hums coming from your stereo or computer speakers.

Last but not least, are Uninterruptible power supplies, or UPS’s. These devices combine surge protection and power conditioning into one unit like conditioners, but also add a battery backup as well. This means that if there is a power outage, any connected component will remain running as if the power was uninterrupted (hence the term UPS!)

UPS’s prevent the most common form of damage done to most electronics and computers, which is caused by the abrupt change in power state (from off, to on, and then back on again) caused by a typically brief power outage. With personal computers, these outages are most responsible for bad hard drives and power supplies, which result costly and often hard to justify repairs.

It is important to note that most lightning and power surges will void most manufacturers’ warranties, which underscores the importance of protecting your components (unless you want to rely on your homeowners or renters insurance policy – assuming you have one that covers these types of problems)

UPS’s are sized by the amount of watts they need to provide. A typical computer system with LCD display and speakers will require a 350-555 watt UPS. It is also not a bad idea to install one where your Cable or DSL modem are connected, as well as your router if you have one.

Last but not least, about once or twice a year, I usually see at our office a case of lightning or power surge damage so severe that it overwhelms a surge strip, power conditioner, or even a UPS. This is due to the sheer amount of voltage that a direct or near strike contains.

In these rare but real cases, beyond surge protection and what I’ve discussed today, your next line of defense is having good backups in place.

I’ll cover the importance of backups, and different strategies in my next blog.

Happy Spring, and see you next Month!

Jason

We have grown from a small two person computer and networking startup servicing a few dozen commercial clients in the Hagerstown MD area, to a firm over a dozen strong with over 150 commercial clients, and over 1000 residential clients within a 100 mile radius of our Hagerstown, MD headquarters.

Our services don’t just include commercial computer and networking support.  Over the last 10 years, we’ve added residential computer services, phone and voicemail system installation, video conferencing solutions, Apple Mac capabilities, outsourcing, and now this year Managed Services.

We continue to grow and adapt to our clients needs all in an effort to execute our mission and provide our customers with a better relationship with technology.

He’s looking forward to another 10 years!

Thank you!