One of the things I noticed right away when I moved back to the east coast (Montreal) after spending almost a decade out west (Montana, Colorado, California) is just how bad trees are for stable power. We've lost power at least a half dozen times due to trees, sometimes for a few days at a stretch. So having a couple UPS's around is really a must.
I have one UPS in the house right now and it's located in the A/V rack of the home theater. The logic behind this is that I can put not only the HTPC on it but also the cable modem and router. That way when the power is out the HTPC will safely shut down and the internet will still work for a long time. It's an older model APC I got used. Works fine, only really annoying bit is that it beeps once every few seconds for as long as the power is out, which after a day or so gets really annoying. For sizing, I would take the machines you have attached and figure out how much current they draw on average. You should then be able to do a rough calculation of how much usage you can get out of a certain amp-hour rating. But really, most home UPS's should only be lasting just long enough to save your work and shut down safely. I will be getting another for my main PC which is in another room, primarily just to make sure I can save my work and it can shutdown safely. But with running Windows on all my machines I've never really had a problem where a sudden loss of power caused something to get really screwed up. ---- Brian On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Steve Tomporowski <didym...@gmail.com>wrote: > Today went down and looked at what Best Buy has for UPS's and a have a > couple of questions. > > First, is it a good idea to buy a larger UPS and put two computers on it? > The rationale is that one computer is on 24/7, but the other is on only > when I'm working at it. So, the 24/7 computer can have the UPS shut it > down, while I'll shut down the other by hand. Or would it be better to run > each one off a smaller UPS? I am assuming here that any UPS I get will have > a USB connector to shut the computer down. Doesn't seem logical otherwise. > > Second, what is the right size/power? For getting things shut down, 10 > minutes is enough, I really don't imagine sitting playing Far Cry 2 for two > hours, waiting for the power to come on..... > > Thanks....Steve > > > __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature > database 4193 (20090626) __________ > > The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. > > http://www.eset.com > > >
