Protecting your electronics from power outages

It’s February in Washington, and we all know what that means. Nasty weather, high winds, downed trees, power surges and blackouts. It got me thinking, how in the world are we going to protect all our computers, smart televisions, and our overly complicated espresso machines we got for Christmas, from being destroyed due to power issues? Well fear not dear reader, here is a list of things you can do to keep you from having a really expensive month.

Prevent damage before a power outage:

Here is a small list of things that you can do to prevent damage from occurring before the weather gets nasty and the power goes out. Hint: the first two are a necessity.

Backing up your computers

I know that you have heard this before, “backup your data”. Well it’s not just some throwaway line, it should be a way of life. But I’m always astonished by the number of people who do not have any form computer backup. At the very least you should have one form of backup. This could be either in a cloud form (i.e iCloud, Google Drive or Dropbox), or a physical external hard drive that attaches directly to your computer with a USB cable.

• Cloud storage

               If you are on a very tight budget, and let’s face it most of us are, then the cheapest and probably the easiest solution would be some form of cloud backup program. Most of us have an iCloud account that came with our iPhone, or a OneDrive account that came with our Windows PC. These are easy and cheap to set up, with companies like Google Drive giving you 15 GB for free with the option of paying for more. They take only a few minutes to set up and will automatically back up as much or as little as you want.

• External hard drive

               It’s incredibly cheap to buy an external hard drive nowadays, with many companies like Western Digital, Seagate, Kingston, and even Dell offering different styles. I found a 2 TB Seagate the other day on Amazon for $69. The cloud would be great solution for everyday use whereas the external drive would be great for periodic backups and archiving, perhaps once a week or month. Your external drive should then be stored in a place that is safe and dry. I recommend that you use both solutions if possible.

• Network attached storage

               Being a small business owner myself with multiple computers, I recommend something called a Network Attached Storage device or NAS for short. A NAS is basically a single hard drive or group of hard drives that are attached to your network using ethernet cables instead of USB cables. This way multiple computers can read/write and share data to a centralized hard drive. I will explain more about NAS devices and other forms of computer backup in a later post.

Surge protector

Now that your precious data is free from harm, you need to protect your sensitive electronics. One of the simplest and cheapest options is to invest in a surge protector. Before we go any further please give me a moment to explain about the differences between a surge protector and a power strip.

• What is a power surge?

               AC power coming from the power company is not constant, and it’s not really all that stable, at least as far as circuit boards are concerned. At any given moment the power from your wall can have sags, swells, or interruptions. These are referred to as “Noise” which can last microseconds or longer. The power supplies, which are built into your electronics and change the AC power from your wall to DC, can help mitigate some of these effects, but it can still cause electronics to degrade over time.

               A power surge is a large voltage spike that can damage electronics much faster or even destroy them immediately. Power surges can be caused by lightning strikes or tree branches brushing power lines. However, 70% of most surges are due to everyday home use: air-conditioners being turned on and off, vacuum cleaners being plugged in, washing machines, and even printers.

• What is a power strip?

               Your average power strip is just an extension cord with multiple plugs. A surge protector, on the other hand, is a power strip that can sense when a circuit has more voltage than it should. When that happens a special piece of circuitry in the power strip, called a Metal-Oxide Varistor, will bleed off the excess power into the building’s grounding wire, leaving whatever is plugged into it safe and sound. These Metal-Oxide Varistors can help with short-term surges but can be damaged if the power surge lasts more than a few milliseconds.

• What to look for

               look for a surge protector that is certified by Underwriters Laboratory or UL for short. This is an independent consulting company that tests different electronic equipment. I would also recommend looking for a surge protector that can indicate when the Metal-Oxide Varistor is no longer functional. There’s a couple more things you should look out for as well. The first one is how many “Joules” the surge protector is rated for. Joules is a measurement of how much power can be absorbed at any given amount of time. The last thing to look out for is something called the clamping voltage, that is the level at which the surge protector will start to divert power to the house ground. The lower the clamping voltage and the higher the Joules the better.

Uninterruptible Power Supply/ battery backup (UPS)

While a surge protector might be great for protecting against the day-to-day power fluctuations, it doesn’t do much to protect against power outages. Several years ago, I was helping my mother set up her brand-new (and very expensive) iMac. A few weeks after, I was back over at her house when the power went out. She had completely forgotten to turn off her computer and was understandably concerned that her new computer was now damaged. Fortunately, we had the foresight to plug this new machine into an Uninterruptible Power Supply, most commonly referred to as a UPS.

Think of a UPS as a surge protector hooked up to a battery. During normal everyday use this device will protect you against “Noise”, but you also have the added benefit of an emergency backup power for those blackout days.

• Factors in picking a UPS

               Now picking a UPS can be a little bit daunting especially considering the many different types and sizes there are out there. What power rating are you looking for? How much battery life do you want? How many devices do you need to plug into it? Do you want a dumb or smart UPS? Desktop or server rated?

• Power rating/ Watts

              Let’s begin by tackling the first and most confusing question. On most boxes you will see two different power ratings. One for Watts and one marked VA for Volt-Amperes.  (VA) refers to one form of measuring electrical power from an AC circuit. For the most part you do not have to worry about the VA rating. Most of the time as a small business or home user you only have to deal with Watts. If you want a much better explanation. I will paste a link to a website down below, but as a general rule the wattage of the UPS is around 60% of the VA, so if you had a UPS rated at 1000VA then your wattage would be 600. Got it? Good. The industry consensus for the watt rating, is that a UPS should be rated for 50 to 75% more capacity than what is being drawn by the attached devices. For example: let’s assume you have a single computer plugged in. A 27-inch iMac in 2013 draws around 80 W at idle and 214 W at Max. So, then your UPS needs to be rated at will least 452 to 525 W.

• Battery size

               Battery life is another important decision to make when buying your UPS.  Unless you have a need to keep your computers on for hours, you really just need enough time to save documents and shut your computer down.  Before doing any actual shopping, decide which devices you want to plug into the UPS, then find out the combined power requirements. Let’s say for example, we took our 27-inch iMac and plugged it into an entry-level 390 W UPS. Running our computer at 80 W, according to APC or American Power Conversion Corporation, we would get around 38 minutes of battery life. However, if we were running at maximum capacity at 214 W, we would only be getting 10 to 14 minutes max battery life.

You can find this information by looking in the manuals, or just look up the specs for your devices online. Most UPS devices are designed to only supply power to the computer and other essential equipment. I would highly recommend you only plug in the bare minimum of what you need to safely shutdown your computer to give yourself the maximum amount of time possible. Once you know your total power requirement, take a look at the various UPS devices which you can also find online, and decide which one/s best match your need.  Then, go shopping. You can pick up a 250 W base model for around $40 on Amazon or a decent sized 900 W model for around $160. That should give you enough juice to run your iMac for an hour.  

• The extras

               Some UPSs are even smart enough save your documents and shut your computer down automatically, which is excellent if you’re not able to get to your computer in time. Some will come with monitoring software so that you can see your battery life. Some will come with LCD screens so that you can view the information at a glance. Many will come with multiple outlets. Normally half the outlets will act as a surge protector while the other half will be connected to the battery. You must decide whether you want 2,4,6,8 or more outlets. But remember that the combined power draw of the devices you plug in cannot exceed the Max wattage rating of your battery.

What to do after the power goes out

Around here the power doesn’t just go out, it flickers, dims, and might go out and come back on a few times before there’s finally a blackout. All this can wreak havoc on your electronics. Most modern electronics are designed to handle the small quick spikes in electricity that can happen every day, but they are not built to withstand the constant turning off and on every few seconds that a winter storm brings. It is highly recommended that during the storm you not only turn off, but you unplug every sensitive electronic device you can. This means TVs, computers, coffee makers and game consoles. It’s probably not a bad idea to unplug your electric car as well. When the power finally comes back on you will suddenly have a rush of electricity running through your house. This rush of the sudden electricity can sometimes be bad for anything plugged into it, especially if it has circuit boards. That’s why I would wait until the power comes back on completely before plugging things in again one at a time.

The verdict

Always use a surge protector on your devices (TVs, coffee makers, stereo, etc.). However, you should use a UPS on your computers. If there is nothing else that you take away from this article I hope it’s that you learn that you should always have a backup of your data. Remember that you can replace your computer, but once that data is gone, it’s gone forever

Useful links

Below is a set of links that will help you better in your decision-making.

Seagate 2 TB hard drive: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Portable-External-Photography-STDS2000100/dp/B00KWHMQV2

A useful tool to help you calculate how big of a UPS you will need: http://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/tools/ups_selector/

Volt-Amperes VS. Watts: www.electronicdesign.com/energy/what-s-difference-between-watts-and-volt-amperes