When you work online from home, it is a necessity to keep your computer system up and running at all times. Any time your system is down, it could be costing you money… and should something tragic happen, like an electrical spike or lightning strike, it could easily fry your entire computer. The last thing I want to do is lose all of my work-related data, so last night, I picked up an APC Battery Backup system.
Truth be told, I have had my eye on a battery backup for some time now, but the high price had always kept me away. A battery backup is similar to a surge protector in that it protects equipment plugged into it from surges, spikes and such, but it also has a built-in battery system, so if the power does surge or goes out completely, the system switches over to the battery, allowing you to safely shut down your components without any damage or data loss.
After recently getting a new TV (something else I want to protect), I decided it was time to go ahead and pull the trigger. The unit I went with, APC’s BX1500LCD, was originally ~$200 but happened to be on sale this week for $160 at Circuit City, and I also had a $30 gift certificate, so I paid $140 with tax and all - not too bad.
This is one of the higher end home models, with 865 watt 1500VA capacity, 8 outlets and even an LCD screen that displays more than 20 status notifications.
We hooked the unit up behind my computer workstation and purchased a 25′ extension cable for my TV so I could connect it as well. As is, I am running the computer, both of my LCD monitors and my TV on the battery backup system.
One of the coolest features of this battery backup is the real-time power consumption monitor. This will tell you exactly how much power is being used by the components plugged into the system. Josh and I experimented with this for a bit, and here are some of the numbers we found.
- With everything off, there was still about 15 watts being drawn. This is called phantom energy and is common with all electronic devices.
- My (aging) computer and monitors pull about 165 watts at idle and right about 200 watts under full load.
- My TV pulls a whopping 300 watts when watching a brightly-colored show.
- The max draw we could pull with these components was 500 watts total, still leaving me over 300 watts of headroom on the UPS.
So far, the UPS has worked great and I have no complaints. If you are like me and work from home, work with valuable data or simply have a lot of nice electronics / home theater equipment, you might want to consider protecting your investment with a quality battery backup system. A few dollars now to protect a lot of valuable equipment is money well spent, and certainly a better bet than those ripoff extended warranty offers!
