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Protecting the data on your office computers

Tech Talk. By Tom Savel, MD, amednews contributor. Sept. 10, 2001.

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When it comes to data and your office PCs, it's really not a matter of if you will lose data, but when.

One way to keep this loss to a minimum is to use a product known as an uninterruptible power supply.

The UPS will provide a steady stream of power, regardless of any surges, dips or complete loss of power. The UPS is truly insurance for your PC system.

In addition to working with the PC itself, the UPS can also protect other pieces of equipment, such as printers, modems, fax machines and telephones.

There are a wide variety of UPSproducts on the market, ranging in price from $100 to more than $3,000. What differentiates one product from another is the number of items it can protect (known as the load), the number of outlets it has, its software (if included) and its battery life.

The average practice has between two and four PC systems, one or two printers and at least one fax machine. To be on the safe side, each PC system should have its own UPS.

You need to be sure that the UPS you buy can handle, at minimum, the load of one PC in a tower case and one 17-inch monitor.

Running completely on battery, you should have between five and 10 minutes of power. This time will allow you to stop the tasks you are working on and safely shut down. Of course, the higher-end UPS units will afford you much more than five to 10 minutes, but at a significant cost.

One of the industry leaders in the development of the UPS is American Power Conversion Corp. APC has won many awards for its products, and it has a vast product line. In addition to offering a two-year warranty, APC will replace equipment, up to a value of $25,000, if it is damaged while using APC products. [...]