Uninterruptible Power Supply

Having a UPS is always a good idea, but the one you show is pretty weak. It's only rated at 750VA (voltamps), which is equivalent to about 487 watts. If your Mac has a 300 watt power supply, and you also have a monitor, TV, VTR or any other equipment connected, you'll have precious little time to shut things down.

Typically, UPS manufacturers use a different method to calculate their VA ratings than is the industry standard ... sort of like the way hard drive manufacturers use a different way of calculating hard drive space; for example, you purchase a 500gb hard drive only to find out it has 467gb of usable space.

When shopping for a UPS, add up the wattage requirements for all the equipment that will be connected, then double it. Then look for a UPS that meets the doubled capacity. Look at the UPS's VA rating and multiply by .65 (65%) to find it's wattage capacity. The more you exceed your wattage needs, the longer you'll have to power down your equipment during a blackout or brownout. And remember, the ratings only apply to a new unit when the UPS's internal battery is fresh.

-DH

Thanks David! I see what I need to do then. I have 2 monitors besides the G5 tower, and some external harddrives I wanted to put on the UPS so I'll need to crawl under/behind/around the desk and get at those plugs to see the watts.

Thanks for the info! I wasn't sure how to decide what I needed.