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UPS gooooooooood!
Had a power failure at home today -- some idiot ran into a power pole,
most likely. Fried ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
lisa_marli's husband's computer, a block
away from us, but we were fine. There are two of the cheap Windows boxen
that are not (yet) on APC UPSs, (one ancient Tripplite supply
just up and croaked, and the one in the Y.D.'s room died when some
idiot person who thought they were being helpful plugged a
vacuum cleaner into it).
Unfortunately, getting the network back up was another matter. The gateway box tends to hang -- waiting for a BOOTP packet, I think -- instead of rebooting, the firewall seems to come up in an odd state sometimes, and in any case the ADSL modem came up weird and had to be power-cycled. Everything needed to be smacked upside the head for a while before it all settled down and worked. I'd work on the gateway some more, but that means taking it down, so I'll have to wait until I'm alone in the house, or at least the only one awake.
I really need to set up off-site backups, don't I?
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Not only did our own UPS blow recently.
One month ago {$employer}'s primary data center blew during powerwork that {$contractor} swore up and down would not knock out the power. Took over 12 hours to recover.
Last weekend I worked Sat afternoon and Sun morning (called at 5am) for a controled shutdown and restore.
Tues around Noon, again data center down for 9 hours.
Next weekend we have yet another controled power down, but I'm going to be allowed to "sleep in" on a Sunday until 7 or 8am for the power restore.
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Thanks for the, ah, diagnostical help!
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You might try switching to another channel -- 1, 6, and 11 are the ones that have the least overlap. If there's another machine on the same channel, both will reduce power rather than cause interference. The other common interference source is a microwave oven, but it doesn't really sound as though that's the problem.
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Offsite or at least off-line... a good friend of mine who's been doing this a while is a fan of a pair of USB/Firewire external drives. Plug one in one night, run your backup, then swap'em in the morning, leaving the offline drive totally unplugged from anything... stuff it in a waterproof bag in a fire safe and you're probably gonna be fine without having to have anything leave the building.
OTOH, if it's not that much data, backup across the net to a colo host (or something similar like a Fastmail account) works real well and doesn't involve moving physical media either.
The real bastard of backups these days is that the backup media in traditional forms (tape, removable disc) just isn't big enough for the amount of storage one can get for damn cheap. OTOH, simply having two of everything has got to the point where it's semi-cost-effective.
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I want to buy something newer before I do lose my system.
I do a lot of back ups. Most onsite. Just the essential data files. A lot to my pda. A lot of my personal data is in files that read to both the main computer and the pda. Useful. And I just got one of those 4 gig mini usb drives. I do additional back up to the family yahoo account. It qualifies as a convenient offsite location. Again, I worry about essential data and picture files. The program files can be reloaded again.
Should really go and find all the program files with real data in them that don't back up on a regular basis, and get them done...
I may have won the squirmish. He's going to Fry's later today to buy us something. I'll win the battle when it's actually set up and protecting the computers.
Steve, what do you know about Cyberpower? It's what's on sale at Fry's.
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And, although I'm running XP, the Belkin stated it would work with every OS we have in the house. Just in case this UPS goes to another computer. The other guys only promised XP on the box.
It claims I can run it for 60 minutes with my set up. More than enough time to do a safe shut down. Even if I'm depending on the software because I'm not home.
Daddy says he will put it up after dinner. Then my beast will have full UPS and the printers will have serge protection.
We also got some smaller serge protectors. For Moose's computers and his TV and game consoles. Since this stuff isn't on when he isn't home, and he's usually just playing around when he is, there is less need to "Safely shut down" and more a need to just protect the equipment. I may snarf one to make a more permanent set up for the laptop when it is at home.
Dad still hasn't decided what he wants to do to protect his computer. He currently has one of his shop computers plug in where his usual computer lives. It is X2K, but it will let him do websites, which is mostly what he does. He states he will do something to protect his new beast when he gets through putting it together.
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Just so long as I don't try to plug Moose's computers into a piece of cloth. I defnitely got some plug thingies that say Surge Protection on them. So I think we're ok.
I just can't spill. :)
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