Subject:How prevent project destruction by power loss?

Posted by: spinweb

Date:4/9/2007 6:33:43 AM

OK. I have a laptop which I ran ACID Pro on for much of my experience with it. That offered protection via the internal battery. Power went out... no biggie. ACID didn't irrevocably crash and corrupt project files and all their backups.

Now, how are folks preventing the destruction of month's worth of work in 2 seconds (presumably caused by some moron hitting a power pole)?

Do the pros have APC battery power backups on their rigs? I'm surge protected, but apparently have nothing to prevent a power cut, which happens more in the South than anywhere I've ever lived.

Is this adequate? http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1951829

Thanks,

Rick

Subject:RE: How prevent project destruction by power loss?

Reply by: thenoizzbox

Date:4/9/2007 8:32:57 AM

Yep, that UPS would do fine and, personally, I would never dream of running a computer without a UPS. Especially when working in creative applications where you can potentially loose hours of work because of something like like a power outage or a simple momentary drop which can cause a PC to reboot in the middle of your work session.

Subject:RE: How prevent project destruction by power

Reply by: spinweb

Date:4/9/2007 8:40:09 AM

Thanks thenoizzbox,

Live and learn. As I said, because I had only used a laptop that had, essentially, a battery backup, I'd never been s#$%#^&$ like this before.

I tried to send the .ACD file to Sony for repair. Anyone know if I'm likely to get it back fixed?

Maybe Sony needs to market a product to repair ACD files? Include it in future ACID versions? Anything....

-Rick

Subject:RE: How prevent project destruction by power

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:4/9/2007 10:50:40 AM

Adding to what noizz said, 300 watts should be sufficient but note what you want to protect in the event of a power loss. (Obviously, you'll want to keep juice flowing to your monitor and PC so you can save and shut down properly.)

Another great thing about UPS' is that they can protect you not only from power outages but brownouts too (which can cause file corruption without you even knowing about it).

Iacobus

Subject:RE: How prevent project destruction by power

Reply by: jackn2mpu

Date:4/12/2007 9:46:13 AM

Allow me to add my thoughts here:
APC ups's are a-okay. For a laptop you won't need huge power, like a previous poster said 300 watts should be enough. What you'll want on there are your laptop and the audio interface you're using. The latter is so that when the power goes out, your Windows won't go haywire suddenly losing a peripheral. Trust me, I've had that happen. All my electronic equipment is/are on APC units - the TV, VCR and DVD on one, each computer has it's own, etc. The nice thing with having the VCR on one is you don't have to re-program the darn thing!
I have had an APC ups fail, but it failed in a safe mode. Basically what it did was to sacrifice itself for the equipment that was connected to it and it went into a shut-down mode that shut off it's output.
Jack
PS: Almost forgot - plug in a small lamp into the ups so that when the power goes out you won't be in the dark, working at the computer and trying to shut down by way of the light from the display.

Subject:RE: How prevent project destruction by power

Reply by: spinweb

Date:4/12/2007 10:33:48 AM

Thanks jackn2mpu,

Actually, what I plan to use the APC on is not a laptop. I was just indicating why this kind of *@#* hadn't snagged me before.

Will the 300 Watt unit suffice for a regular desktop PC?

Hmm. The lamp idea is a good one, too.

-Rick

Subject:RE: How prevent project destruction by power

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:4/12/2007 11:44:29 AM

For the most part, yes. You'd only upgrade to a higher capacity if you want to provide backup to a larger amount of devices. (Of course, remember that you should immediately stop what you're doing and shut down.) The larger the wattage, the longer you have. (I believe 300, when it's at its max, provides about 4 minutes.)

Also note that most of these UPSs have two sets of outlets; one for plain-vanilla surge protection, and one for surge protection and battery backup. Make sure you plug your PC and monitor in the battery backup outlets.

Iacobus