Which UPS?

I have purchased a few UPSs over the years. Make sure you can live with it -- that the fan is not too noisy, it's not too big, and so on. I suspect you could get by with a 350VA for what you're trying to do. Smaller = quieter. Keep in mind the batteries don't last forever. In some of my APC units I've had to replace them after 3 years. Everything has needed a new battery (or 2) within 5 years.

Just make sure the UPS has:

• Easy to replace battery
• An on/off switch
• A simlple way to mute alarms

chuckiehina said:

Just make sure the UPS has:

• Easy to replace battery
• An on/off switch
• A simlple way to mute alarms

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I agree with the OP, you want a high quality sine-wave UPS to protect against power spikes and brown-outs as well as completely loss of power.

Also, his entire point is that he wants one with a USB connection that is compatible with his Mac, so that if the Mac is unattended, it will shut off at the appropriate time when running on battery.

I'm also looking for a UPS for my on-order 27" maxed-out iMac. Only ever having bought surge protectors in the past, I was a little horrified by the prices of the pure sinewave units.

Any suggestions for the cheapest possible, yet adequate, pure sinewave UPS?

virginblue4 said:

So what do people think of the 3 that I have posted? Any advice?

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They all look fine, with the only real difference being run time. You should investigate to find out if there are any differences in standby power as far as how much power is wasted when the UPS is just filtering and not in battery.

From reading reviews at Amazon the Cyberpower UPSs are Mac compatible, you should simply plug it in to the USB of the Mac and it will work.

Just a simple thought/question,,,,,,,

Given the price of these,..., exactly how necessary are they ?!?

Thanks

Jimmy.apple.fan said:

Just a simple thought/question,,,,,,,

Given the price of these,..., exactly how necessary are they ?!?

Thanks

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Same question. I have lived in the same apartment for the past 2+ years without any brownouts or blackouts even through Sandy. I can justify spending 150 to protect a 2500 piece of equipment, but don't know if I will ever need it. Plus they are fairly large and ugly and I have nowhere to hide it

I consider a ups with power filtering to be a requirement and not just for power failure. Dust/dirt and power issues are the two biggest reasons parts fail prematurely. If I can eliminate one I am happy to do so. You don't need to spend $250 either. There are plenty of sine wave ups's out there for well under $200.

I will buy this one:

http://store.apple.com/it/product/TR423ZM/A/idowell-ibox-ups-550-va

I am going to buy one of the cyberpower ones you linked. it gets rave reviews on amazon.

we had a bad power spike 10 years ago. They were working on the lines on our street. There was a huge power surge and it killed my desktop and the display. it also killed our tv. 4 days later I was driving down my street and there were 9 televisions out at the garbage.

The power company refuses to admit anything happened.

So many of these UPSs are overkill for an iMac, even with another display/multiple hard drives attached.

I have this one:

http://www.amazon.com/CyberPower-CP...=1-1&keywords=cyberpower+pure+sine+wave+850va

Gives me more than enough time to shut my system down etc etc. Something like 30 minutes, even with the display on. I use the automatic software to shut down the iMac after a few minutes if the power doesn't come back on.

WilliamG said:

So many of these UPSs are overkill for an iMac, even with another display/multiple hard drives attached.

I have this one:

http://www.amazon.com/CyberPower-CP...=1-1&keywords=cyberpower+pure+sine+wave+850va

Gives me more than enough time to shut my system down etc etc. Something like 30 minutes, even with the display on. I use the automatic software to shut down the iMac after a few minutes if the power doesn't come back on.

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I have the 1000 version of this (CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD PFC Compatible 1000VA 600W Pure Sine Wave Tower UPS). I can'r remember what the battery time was the last time I had when it was with out power... I wanna say 40min. This thing is silent when on battery, pure sine, and not terribly big at all. I would definitely recommend Cyberpower. Mine easily handles the load of the new 27in iMac, 25.5 in monitor, and couple hard drives.

bordenkecher said:

I have the 1000 version of this (CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD PFC Compatible 1000VA 600W Pure Sine Wave Tower UPS). I can'r remember what the battery time was the last time I had when it was with out power... I wanna say 40min. This thing is silent when on battery, pure sine, and not terribly big at all. I would definitely recommend Cyberpower. Mine easily handles the load of the new 27in iMac, 25.5 in monitor, and couple hard drives.

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Mine's certainly not silent on battery. The fan inside that kicks on isn't loud by any means, but when it kicks on (only when it switches to battery), you can hear it.

I already had a fairly new APC UPS unit and this question came up when I got my new iMac. In fact, I had ordered a pure sine wave unit which I canceled after reading this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2202399?start=0&tstart=0

and also talked to a friend with a 2011 iMac who is using a standard APC unit.
I shut off my circuit breaker and the unit worked just fine, as it did with my PC. My friend has had his unit kick in numerous times and it worked fine for the purpose both he and I want to use it, which is to almost immediately shut down the computer and not continue to use it through the UPS. I got no noises or problems in several minutes of running off the APC unit. I figure that' probably good enough, especially after reading that link.

This is what I use for my iMac

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00429N18S/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Has pure sine wave, easy to use buttons, USB shutdown works fine without installing any extra software. Can get a lot of run time out of it and it is well priced.