westom;566325 Wrote: > All computers have done that since Windows NT. Only machines that could > lose data due to an unexpected power off were Windows 95/ME vintage > machines. Today, power off must never damage saved software. And > unexpected power off - even 50 years ago - must never damage electronic > hardware. > > UPS serves only one function - to provide temporary power so that you > can save unsaved data. So that you need not be interrupted by the > power loss.
Wrong: I've seen machines fail to come back due to power loss. When a car runs into a telephone pole, you do not get a clean shutdown at the OS level (has everything been written to disk at that instant? On a busy machine, the answer is likely 'no'). Worse, the power fluctuates in such instances: providing the same effect as plugging and unplugging the power at the wall plate repeatedly. Drives spin up/down, and surges trash data and possibly do severe hardware damage. I've lost 3 drives at home due to power failures, and 2 power supplies at work (on a building UPS -- those orange outlets). Heck, I've even seen huge building-wide UPS's damage machines when someone turned the dial from 'Online' to 'Bypass' and accidentally went too far and hit 'Off', then correcting and turning to bypass. This creates nasty powerdrops followed by a spike as several hundred machines come back online. A UPS is a good investment. For a VortexBox appliance, probably any old cheap UPS will do you fine: the current draw is not much at all, so you don't need a huge UPS. Stick with a brandname, but a cheap APC should be fine. -- snarlydwarf ------------------------------------------------------------------------ snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=80889 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
