I REALLY Hate Power Outages

[The Shaman]

There's nothing like waking up to an idle desktop, a login screen, and one system down altogether to start your day. UGH!

Apparently I lost power sometime b/w 4am - 5am, and the only thing I could think of was how many struct's I lost out on. (Does this mean I'm addicted?) Now, I'm getting ready to do what I should've done a long time ago - buy a UPS or three. I have a pretty fair selection to choose from at work and could use some input from you guys.

What I need are ones that I can configure to shutdown the system after say 5 min's of power loss. One unit would work w/ two Win 2K boxes that share a monitor, and just crunch 24/7. The two brands I have to choose from are APC & Smartlink in various wattages. Based on the very general info. I've given, anyone care to add their opinions? BTW, I'm especially interested in the configurable shutdown.

TIA

[IronBits]

APC should come with a smart cable and software that monitors it via a serial port. From there, it's all configurable and never fails to work right under w2k

[The Shaman]

Thanks, IB! Would you happen to know if these UPS' can only connect to one system via serial, or more than one? IOW, will I need to look at getting one UPS per system in order to configure shutdowns?

[IronBits]

They only work with one computer, however, you can have that computer execute a script that would send a shutdown sequence to the other servers. When the power comes back on, if you have it set in the BIOS that way, if it is supported in the BIOS, to turn the computers back on when power is restored.

[Supp]

Having probs w/ power outgates??
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Recently, we have many strong rains in our country, last one was so "good" that we had to pump about 150 m2 of water from our cellar
Not to mention that when I returned home, my comps were idle for almost 20 hours...