Southern Alberta winters are hard on more than just vehicles. Wind storms, ice and heavy demand bring power flickers and outages, and every time the power drops suddenly, your computers and network equipment take a hit.
What a power blip can do
- Corrupt files that were open or saving at the time
- Damage hard drives and power supplies over time
- Knock out your internet, phone system and Wi-Fi until everything is restarted in the right order
- Interrupt a backup halfway through
Simple protection that pays for itself
- A UPS (uninterruptible power supply) for anything important: the main computer, server, network storage, modem and router. It’s a battery box that keeps things running through short blips and gives you time to shut down properly during a longer outage.
- Surge protection for everything else. A basic power bar is not a surge protector, so check the label.
- Replace UPS batteries every three to five years. Most units beep or show a warning when the battery is getting weak. Don’t ignore it.
After an outage
- Power on the modem and router first, then the network storage or server, then the computers.
- Check that your backup ran the next night.
- If anything won’t start or acts strangely, call before trying repeated restarts.
A few hundred dollars of protection can save days of downtime and an expensive repair.
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