Suggestions for a UPS regarding my home system

The primary purpose of a UPS should be to provide sufficient power to perform an orderly shutdown so that you don't lose your work. The secondary purpose is power conditioning. Evaluate the need to continuously power the keyboard, for example, when utility power fails. Power conditioning alone does not require a UPS.

As APC said to provide sufficient power to all the equipment you describe with a single UPS will require one that is likely to be prohibitively expensive. The way around that is to purchase two or more less powerful UPSs. The total cost of two will be less than the cost of one with twice the capacity, and the difference becomes progressively greater with three or more.

Does all of this equipment need to be on battery back up? Many UPS have half of the outlets on back up and the other half using the same surge/filtration but not on battery.

I have APC BR1500G UPS. It has 5 on surge/battery and 5 on surge only. There's one problem that I have, but it could be my system as APC tried to test it out on their testing machines. The problem is that when my Mac wakes from a Sleep, it tends to lose comm with the UPS. They've tried for at least 2 months, as we were in constant communications, unlike my UPS and Mac lol.

For my set up, nothing like yours though, 2012 Mac Mini, 24" LED Apple display, Klipsch PC speakers and a Canon printer.

I have the 24 Display plugged into the Master Switch. So when it turns off the Klipsch speakers are turned off. The rest are plugged into the battery back up. With that in mind, I have about 120 +/- minutes until I lose battery. Yes, it's a little much for my system. But when I lose power, I'm normally in the middle of something and I would like to finish as much as I could. As there's nothing else for me to do. lol

KOT

Simply unplugging and plugging the USB does fix it. Or not allowing the Mac to still is also another resort. Since you have an iMac, you still can have the display sleep just not the computer part itself.

I have to admit that I have non-factory SSD and RAM. So that could be my problem. I also have another problem where my Mac wakes to a blank screen, frozen log in and other problems. I'm not the only person though. But I would seriously like to know if the other people have aftermarket SSD, RAM or what not.

But I have noticed that my mother's APC UPS does continue to talk with the Mac after wake up. The firmware for the UPS is different from mine. But it's also an older model and smaller wattage.

KOT

You'll need to figure out what are the VA for each device.

Grab me the Voltage, Amperage and/or Wattage for each device and I'll let you know. If there's a label of VA on them, that's even better. Provide as much as you can please.

KOT

This should help you...

http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/

I simply selected "Home Office" and "By Device". With at least a 5 minute run time.

Made your iMac 30" with Intel i5 700 processor and external hard drive. It calculated that the iMac uses 336ish watts. Which it won't do that all the time.

I also added a set of speakers at 75 watts.

As well as one misc device at 75 watts.

It came up with Back-up UPS Pro 1000 as the best price, $149 USD at apc.com

Fact is, all the wattage that are stamped on every electric device. Will probably never use that wattage in it's life time. It's only there because it has the potential to use that, but under most times it won't.

For example, my 2012 Mac Mini is labeled at 85watts. The 24" Apple Cinema Display is at 212watts. Klipsch speakers 240watts. However, with me playing music at a enjoyable level, not too loud, not too quite. My UPS states that I am using 40 to 45watts. It also estimates that I have a 128 minute run time when on battery.

So you maybe able to get away with the 700, but your run time would probably be less than 30 minutes.

KOT

Guys do you think this is enought to power up my imac 27 inch and WD external hard drive??

The APC Back-UPS ES 700VA 230V you describe would be more than sufficient for them.

iMac: Power consumption and thermal output (BTU) information

https://www.apple.com/environment/reports/docs/27inch_iMac_PER_feb2014.pdf

whitetulip wrote:

If you think I could be running rought 20/30 mins, that would be fine with me. Again, I just need to make sure the equipment is protected by power surges, and if the power fails, I can still save my sessions etc without panicking or risking to lose everything.

http://www.ebuyer.com/196268-apc-back-ups-es-700-ac-230v-405w-700va-8-output-con nectors-be700g-uk

Do you think then this will suffice for my equipment, KOT????

If you only care about protection for everything, but battery back up for the iMac. Then that UPS would be a great choice. You have many options as for how you plug your devices in.

For that UPS, I would plug the iMac into the Master, follow the instructions to have the UPS "learn" the iMac's power usage. So it'll know when the iMac is off. Then plug the speakers into the "Controlled by Master". The external hard drive into one of the plugs that is battery back up, just in case for brown outs or quick black outs.

The reason for the speakers into the Controlled by Master, is so when the iMac is off the speakers will get automatically shut off too. The downfall, is that when the power goes out. You won't have the speakers but at least your iMac and external will still have power until you properly shut them down.

KOT

Kingoftypos wrote:

This should help you...

http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/

I simply selected "Home Office" and "By Device". With at least a 5 minute run time.

Made your iMac 30" with Intel i5 700 processor and external hard drive. It calculated that the iMac uses 336ish watts.

That's an I7 with maximum Ram, oher models will use less power.