APC BR1500LCD 1500VA 865 Watts 8 Outlets BACK-UPS RS

Pros: Good price and decent recharge times

Cons: Not completable with new HP servers.

Other Thoughts: I have used these with our old servers and they were great. When I upgraded to some new HP G6 servers they stopped working. I replaced the batteries in them in case they had gone bad but it didn't help. After some reasearch I found the new power supplies in many servers have check the power supplied and if it doesn't like the power it will shut off the server or not let it boot.

These UPS's don't supply the correct power when running on battery to work with newer HP servers. This is true even if they are within the correct wattage.

Pros: Works great, has even gotten used in a couple of power interruptions and outages.

Cons: Heavy

Pros: Relatively high power output for this sort of unit, varied spacing of outlets allows some (but not all!) types of wall warts to be directly connected, long cord, LCD is occasionally handy, reliable quick response for frequent power "blips".

Cons: Runs somewhat warm. I don't have another type of UPS to compare to, so I don't know if it's more than normal, but these produce a significant amount of heat compared to a lot of my systems. When the fans do decide to kick up to full power they're quite loud, but that's not most of the time.

Other Thoughts: I have two of these at home and we have half a dozen of them at work, all working great. The first one is three and a half years old now. Having the LCD has been handy for determining the read power draw of my systems, as well as for the event counter to know just how flaky our power is.

Pros: You get what you are paying for in terms of quality here. Run times are as advertised. One thing people do wrong when buying a UPS is under buying. If you think you need 400 watts, buy 800 or more etc.. I live in south Florida, so this thing really gets a work out. We have thunderstorms nearly daily during the summer, they don't last long but they are really annoying. This state also receives more lightning than any other state so spikes, surges, and strikes happen all the time. This unit works great, keeps my machines up and running without breaking a sweat.

Cons: To nitpick, it is loud as sin when it is actually providing power due to the The fan(s) whirling around. This isn't really a huge con though. The newegg shipping was adequate but no extra padding, simply an outer box, again not a huge problem as it arrived safe and sound. The USB cable could be longer. It would be nice to see the ethernet style control modules on these less expensive units, I know it can be done because the printer manufactures are doing it in printers starting at like ~$150.00. Overall, not much to criticize.

Other Thoughts: This unit, as with so many APC units is fantastic. It joins my growing fleet of APC battery backup units, one of which is coming up on 7 years of great service.

Pros: Quality product from APC. Does its job and does it well.

Cons: none

Pros: Long battery life, relatively small, powerful enough to run all my things.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I had a cyber power ups that contributed to two hard drive failures over the corse of a year, ever since I switched Everything has run great. I'm running an Imac G5, 2 external hard drives, external DVD burner printer, and scanner. I have an average run time of one hour

Pros: I have 15 of these deployed to protect network equipment (routers/switches). They all work flawlessly and have done so for well over a year now. For this purpose they supply a huge run time.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I've used APC for power protection for over 10 years now. I have not been disappointed with this choice.

Pros: This UPS was bought as a battery backup for a PowerEdge T100 and an Optiplex 360. I get about 35-45 runtime.
If you are looking for a UPS with more features in the software then I suggest you go for the Smart-UPS with the PowerChute Business Edition.

Cons: None.

Pros: * Quality UPS, contains advanced battery management from APCs more expensive product lines

* High VA for the money

* Cool looking LCD you will rarely notice

* Service - APC sells large UPS solutions to commercial users and we home uses get to benefit from their service infrastructure. You can get timely tech support, order replacement batteries, and even trade in your old units for credit on newer models. I've always been impressed with them (at least compared to their competition).

Contrast Cisco's 'special' support channel for Linksys buyers.

Cons: Like all UPSs - heavy, requires some maintenance, and APC's free service tapers off over time.

'Surge suppression' is just shunting over-voltage to earth ground via MOVs, which is not a great idea in my opinion. All consumer surge suppressors work this way. Read up at brickwall.com on how industrial equipment is protected from surges.

Other Thoughts: A UPS is a pretty technical piece of equipment and isn't going to run maintenance free forever.

The time your PC runs on battery power depends on the power your PC draws and the condition of the batteries. That makes for a huge range in battery life, and the only way to make it last longer is to get a bigger UPS. There is nothing the manufacturer can do to change this, but you could buy the management suite so you can monitor your load and batteries.

The 'weird intermittent noises' someone mentioned may be the normal self test it performs (daily?), or it may be an under-voltage problem in your power a the wall. It can also be because your batteries or control board need replacing. If you were to run the management software (no home user bothers) it would warn you of these issues, but most of us find out when it fails to protect us from an outage, or just turns itself off. I would not return the unit to service after it failed on me until it was repaired!!

Pros: Works as a surge protector. Provides a couple of minutes to turn equipment off during a power outage.

Cons: Started intermittently failing almost immediately after the two year warranty period ended. Would suddenly turn off randomly about once a month, then a couple times a month, and then eventually two-three times per day. When it did this is caused damage to the connected computer equipment.

Other Thoughts: The purpose of a battery backup system is to keep you up and running during intermittant power outages. This unit failed and cut power far more frequently than electrical outages (damaging my computer equipment and requiring it to be replaced). If you buy this unit, expect nothing more than 2 years of reasonable performance (I would have rated it only 3 stars if it didn't fail) and then for it to allow your connected equipment to be damaged.

$200 which caused over $2000 worth of damage. That's a $2200 liability, not at all the 10% insurance I expected it to be. I'll never buy another APC, their reputation for reliability is nothing but deceptive marketing.