An uninteruptible power supply (UPS) is an important part of a comprehensive power delivery system. In the event of a power failure, having a generator on your building is not enough to keep your computers going. A UPS is a battery that sits between a computer and the power that keeps it running. A UPS supplies power to your computers when power has failed, and the building generators are spinning up.
A: A UPS is an integral part of Stanford's power management system for mission-critical computer systems. For certain buildings on the Stanford campus, when the power goes out, a generator immediately starts up. It takes up to four minutes for the generator to start up; during this time, there is no power to the building. A UPS can provide power to attached equipment during this outage.
A: The size of the UPS you need depends on the amount of power your computer consumes. If you have a standard desktop computer, with only one internal hard drive, we recommend a small UPS, such as the APC Back-UPS 300.
A: For a machine with a few internal hard drives and a few external hard drives, we recommend a larger UPS; see APC's sizing page for help with choosing the appropriate UPS.
A: If you are running a server, consider APC's Smart-UPS line; it's tailored to support servers. See APC's sizing page to choose the appropriate UPS.
A: Once you've chosen the appropriate UPS, it can be easily purchased through Stanford's Campus-Wide Agreement with En Pointe Technologies; they have excellent pricing and fast delivery. Orders should be placed through the Prism online puchasing system. More purchasing information is available on Skeezix.