Best UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply).

Lightning destroyed the only computer in our office that was not protected by a surge protector. So now we have a surge protector for everything including hard drives, CD burners, etc.

Don't put your laser printer on a surge protector, as a full sized color laser printer can draw 15 amps at startup. This will fry most UPS surge protectors.

We used uninterruptable power source units from American Power Conversion for years (still do). But recently the alarm sounded even after the power was back on. The alarm did not cease even when I turned the unit back on again, so I figured I should check the fuse. Of course any battery backup is full of live juice, so I got a fireworks display when I pulled out the fuse.

I turned the dead UPS unit in to the computer technical department. They gave me a replacement which turned out to be from Best. Since American Power Conversion sells about 80% of the UPS units used in the USA I had not previously heard of Best, so I asked the head of the computer department. He said "people who have large expensive computers to protect prefer UPS units from Best.

But I asked then why did everyone use UPS units from APC. He smiled and just said, "UPS units from Best are just better.

I have never seen an advertisement for Best products, so I guess they are known among professionals or by word of mouth. As soon as I can learn more about the company and their products I can provide a review and recommendations. In the meantime I had a replacement UPS unit shipped down from my office in St. Louis (I am in Guatemala this season, which has power outages several times a day, resulting in surges which are instant death to computer equipment).

Each of our graphics work stations has up to eight peripherals such as DVD-RAM, stacks of hard drives (and/or a RAID system), CD-burners, and sometimes dual monitors. The present UPS units we have can handle only four plugs so to test the equipment we will need a unit which is more powerful. American Power Conversion kindly sent seven UPS units four years ago but now in the new millennium we may test surge protectors with battery backup protection from additional companies to get product comparisons.

Edited Aug. 5, 2001.
This page first posted Jan 23, 2000, Design updated April 9, 2001.