UPS    Rating:

03/10/03

Will Uninterruptible Power Supplies Make Simple Surge Protectors Obsolete?

It doesn't happen often, but it always seems to happen at the worst time. You're usually pretty diligent about saving your work, but you were distracted by a phone call, or you've been so engrossed in restoring that digital photograph that you haven't saved it your work for an hour. And then the power goes out, and you lose all of that hard work you put into removing the scratches and blemishes on that old family photograph.

If this has ever happened to you, there is a solution: a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply.) UPS units take over when the power goes out, powering your equipment by a backup battery. An inexpensive UPS will keep your equipment running long enough for you to save your work and perform an orderly shutdown. More expensive UPS units allow for expandable battery packs to keep your equipment running for much longer periods of time.

UPS Types

There are three types of UPS systems: a standby UPS (also referred to as Off Line UPS), a Line Interactive UPS, and an On Line UPS. Or, from another perspective: inexpensive, moderately expensive, and expensive.

With a standby UPS, power transfers from AC to the UPS backup battery in the event of an outage. The transfer occurs very quickly – in a few milliseconds – but there is some small risk that you might lose data while the battery kicks in, depending on the characteristics of your computer’s power supply.

Line Interactive UPS units are similar to standby UPS units in that power transfers from AC to the UPS backup battery when an outage occurs, but a Line Interactive UPS also has a voltage regulator that automatically increases or decreases the voltage without resorting to battery power in the event of mild voltage fluctuations, for example, brownouts. If the voltage falls too far, the UPS battery kicks in. The voltage regulator prolongs the life of the UPS battery and may be a more cost effective solution in areas that have frequent voltage fluctuations.

The most expensive type of UPS is an on-line unit. With an on-line unit, the UPS battery, which is always being charged, is always providing the source of power to your computer. Therefore, there is no transfer time when the power fails.

Most home and home office users, who constitute the majority of  PC Fear Factor readers, will select either a standby UPS or Line Interactive UPS, so today we review one of each type of unit: the Tripp Lite Internet Office 525 Standby UPS and the Tripp Lite  SMART550USB Line Interactive UPS.

The TrippLite Internet Office 525U Standby UPS

This unit, pictured below, is an attractive, space saving UPS that can easily fit on or under a desk. Like most Tripp Lite UPS systems, 

it has three outlets that provide both battery backup and surge protection, and three that provide only surge protection. The theory here is that only certain devices, such as your CPU and monitor, require UPS protection, whereas most peripherals need only surge protection. This keeps the cost of the UPS down because the unit doesn't need as much battery power as it would to keep six devices running.

Two of the outlets on this unit are widely spaced or "fat" outlets that allow transformers to be plugged in without blocking the other outlets.

The unit also contains a built in phone jack to provide phone / DSL surge protection.

This unit works in conjunction with Tripp Lite's PowerAlert software, which can be downloaded for free from Tripp Lite's web site. PowerAlert can perform an unattended data save and system shutdown should you be away from your system when the power goes out. (This software also is designed to work with other brands of UPS systems.) The use of PowerAlert is entirely optional. Unless you leave your computer running when you are away from it, you don't need to install PowerAlert. However, if you do leave your computer running unattended, PowerAlert can save you from abnormal Windows shutdowns, which can lead to logical problems on your hard disk. It can also prevent you from losing data you forgot to save when you left for lunch! 

The unit comes with a six foot power cord and space saving flat plug. Warning: never use a three prong to two prong converter when plugging in a UPS or surge protector. Doing so eliminates the ability of the unit to send surges to ground. A telephone cable is also included.

Specifications

This unit has a capacity of 525 volt amperes and has a full load run time of 3 minutes and a half load run time of 10 minutes. This should suit home users very well. Transfer time from AC to backup power takes 2 to 4 milliseconds.

The typical battery lifespan is 3 to 5 years. The battery is not serviceable, but that is not an issue - you would want to replace the unit anyway when the battery wears out because the metal oxide varistor in the surge protector wears out over time.

A USB port is included to connect the UPS to your computer, which you will need to do if you want to use the PowerAlert software. This allows your computer to communicate with the UPS and "know" whether it is running on AC or battery power. If it is running on battery power, the unattended save and shutdown can be executed after a specified number of minutes. A USB cable is included with the unit, so you won't have to buy anything addition to get going.

Set Up

The Tripp Lite UPS needs six hours to charge before the backup battery provides full protection. Tripp Lite recommends that you use two of the battery backup plugs for your computer and monitor. They specifically recommend against plugging a laser printer into a battery backup plug because the heating element in laser printers draws a lot of power.

Testing

In our tests, the UPS unit did what it was supposed to do. That is, it performed a seamless transition to the battery backup when we simulated a power outage. It allowed us plenty of time to save our data and shut down our computer.

PowerAlert. The user guide states that you should connect the UPS unit to your computer via the supplied USB cable prior to installing the PowerAlert software. When we tried to install the software, the installation process hung. As it turns out, the only way we could successfully install PowerAlert was to do the opposite of what the user guide stated and disconnect the UPS from the computer.

A word of advice: before installing PowerAlert, download the owner's manual and read it. The software installation process will prompt you with several questions that you will not understand unless you have read the owner's manual first.

Once you install PowerAlert, it automatically launches when you boot up your computer and shows up on your system tray. When you are running on AC power, you will see a light bulb icon on your system tray. When you are running on battery power, you will see a battery icon.

To configure PowerAlert, right click on the system tray icon and launch the PowerAlert Console. The Summary tab shows you the current (pun intended) AC voltage, battery voltage, and battery age. Current voltages are represented by a blue line. Danger zones on the graphs are highlighted in red.

To set up the automatic save and shutdown parameters, click on Events / Event Manager and select the Shutdown tab.

In the diagram below, we have set the operating system shutdown at two minutes. This means that if the power is out for two minutes, PowerAlert will automatically save all open documents and shutdown windows.

The PowerAlert software functions very well. We tried it with existing and new (unsaved) documents.  If you have an existing document open, PowerAlert saves the document in the current location before the system shuts down. If you have a new document (one that has never been saved) open, it automatically names the document and saves it in the C:/Program Files/Tripp Lite/PowerAlert/DataSafe folder. When power is restored, you can rename the document and move it to the proper location. The PowerAlert software invokes the application's normal save function (you can see it if you watch!) and works with all Windows applications.

We did encounter one disturbing anomaly with the Internet Office 525U unit. It doesn't like laser printers very much - even when they are installed on the surge protected outlets. We found that, when the unit was recharging after a blackout, turning on the laser printer caused the UPS unit to cycle off and on, causing the computer to shutdown and reboot. This should not happen, as we were running on AC power and the laser printer was not connected to a battery backup plug. Tripp Lite is investigating this issue and we will provide a follow up report when we hear something.

Pricing / Warranty

The Internet Office 525U comes with a two year warranty and has a street price of about $65.

The TrippLite SMART550USB Line Interactive UPS

The Tripp Lite  SMART550USB Line Interactive UPS has a "tower" configuration and is 8.5 x 5 x 6.5 inches. It has two banks of three outlets. All six outlets are surge protected; three of the outlets provide battery backup. Unlike the Internet Office 525U unit, this unit does not provide any widely space plugs for transformers. You can plug transformers into the top two outlets without overlaying other outlets, however a transformer on the battery backup side is likely to interfere with the USB port.

This unit also works in conjunction with Tripp Lite's PowerAlert software and comes with a USB cable. It contains a built in phone jack to provide phone / DSL surge protection and comes with a telephone cord.

Specifications

This unit has a capacity of 550 volt amperes and has a full load run time of 5 minutes and a half load run time of 17 minutes. This should suit home users very well. Transfer time from AC to backup power takes 2 to 4 milliseconds.

The typical battery lifespan is 3 to 5 years. 

The SMART550USB is especially good in areas that suffer from frequent brownouts. The built-in voltage regulator protects against brownouts as low as 83 volts without resorting to battery power.

Testing

The hardware tested perfectly, and we did not experience the same laser printer anomaly we experienced when testing the Internet Office unit. Nor did we experience any problems installing the PowerAlert software with the unit already connected to the computer.

Pricing / Warranty

The SMART550USB comes with a two year warranty and has a street price of about $95.

Will UPS Units Make Surge Protectors Obsolete?

In PC Fear Factor I identified the surge protector as a required disaster prevention tool and the UPS (uninterruptible power supply) as an optional tool.

The price for a simple, standby UPS has plunged in the past year to the point where it is not that much more expensive than a surge protector. And since you get both surge protection and protection against data loss with a UPS, the decision to go with a UPS instead of a surge protector is a no-brainer.

However, there is one problem. Most Tripp Lite UPS units come with only six outlets. I currently have eight devices that require surge protection: two printers, a scanner, a computer, a monitor, speakers, a USB hub, and a phone. Thus, I would still need a surge protector and a UPS to accommodate all of my devices. Those who cannot justify both expenditures will stick with an 8 outlet surge protector for now.

I think that in order for UPS units to obsolete surge protectors, they will need to provide at least eight outlets, including two widely spaced outlets that have battery backup and two widely spaced outlets that provide surge protection. My personal preference is for the Internet Office design style, where the weight of the transformers rest solidly on top of the UPS, rather than the tower style where the transformers hang off the side.

Ratings Explanation

We are rating Tripp Lite's UPS units as four star instead of five star for the following reasons:

• The laser jet printer anomaly we experienced with one of the tested units.

• The fact that the units only have 6 instead of 8 outlets.

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