APC BACK-UPS RS BR1500LCD 1500VA/865W UPS System
by APC
|
List Price: Our Price: $100.00 You Save: $106.99 (52%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of APC BACK-UPS RS BR1500LCD 1500VA/865W UPS System
Customer Review: I'm happy with it.
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this UPS to maintain clean power and for graceful shutdowns during blackouts after a power problem that fried 2 of my hard drives at once (smoke came out!!). It could have just been my power supply that caused it, but I'm not taking any chances.
My hard drive setup was only redundant for losing 1 hard drive at once (raid 5) so I lost data. :( To help prevent this from happening again I bought a PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW-SR power supply (http://www.amazon.com/PC-Power-Cooling-Turbo-Cool-1KW-SR/dp/B000VMPGDS) and this UPS.
I'll never buy anything but the best power supply nor go without a UPS again after my toasted hard drive experience.
Anyways, back to the review: My only complaint is that the idle power draw from my computer (quad core processor (Intel QX6700), 2x Nvidia 8800 GTX graphics cards, etc.) + my 37 inch LCD screen is about 490 watts. That means I get about 7-8 minutes of power before the battery is depleted. That's enough time to serve for a graceful shutdown and to survive random power fluctuations, but not any time to actually use the PC during a real blackout.
But that's just the nature of battery power.
So I still give this 5 stars for the great realtime LCD and software. There is a Windows Vista enabled version of the PowerChute management software that can be downloaded from the APC website for free.
The software allows for tweaking a wide range of settings and even keeps a log of when the battery was used and why (overvoltage, undervoltage, blackout, and electrical noise. And you can even tweak when the battery should kick in based on an under/over volt range and electrical noise. Those features give it 5 stars for me. Without the software or LCD I'd give it 3 stars.
Customer Review: Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking;
Summary: 5 Stars
Be careful where you place this unit. I have an office in my home with a desk that has a secretary extension on one side. I placed the APC RS 1500 under my desk where the display could easily be seen and I could access the outlets and controls without too much trouble. The perfect spot seemed to be under the secretary extension below by monitor and keyboard. That worked great for a year or so until I accidentally knocked over a glass of iced tea. While I ran to get a towel to wipe up the mess, the tea dripped over the edge of the secretary extension and into the vents located on the top of the APC RS 1500 unit. Things went down hill quickly from that point. The unit dropped power as one might expect. After unplugging the unit, opening it and disconnecting the battery. I tried to dry as much as I could. A week or so later when I expected the unit to be completely dry, I tried to put it back together. To my surprise the APC RS 1500 took a licking and kept on ticking. It came up immediately and appears to be working perfectly. I thank APC and the good Lord for giving me a second chance. The APC UPS system is now in a safer place. Lesson learned.
I have an HP Pavilion Elite e9280t with 2 500 GB drives configured as a one terabyte drive. I have two monitors (22in and 17in) and two external hard drives (1tb and 350gb) Once I have a power failure the APC RS 1500 gives me about 20 minutes to save files and shutdown. That is all one can expect from the lower priced units. If you want extended work time then you should purchase a high end APC UPS system.
I highly recommend this UPS system
Customer Review: the APC UPS to get
Summary: 5 Stars
If you have a computer with alot of power, and a large monitor than this is the UPS to get. I have a quad core machine that's used for development and some gaming so the power requirements can get up into the 300-400 watt range. I also have a 30inch monitor connected to the UPS and it draws another 100 watts of power. I have several other devices connected to this UPS so the 800 watts is about 200 watts higher than I needed but I'd rather have extra power than under. My last UPS was also an APC but it was severly under power and rated only for 300 watts of output, it would turn off at times when my computer/monitor would draw excess power; I believe it also attributed to the UPS dying.
After that UPS died I decided it was time to get a better one and spend more. This is a really good UPS. I don't like the fact that Amazon has a no return policy on this unit but I took the chance and found that it works very good. The front LCD can be turned on and left to any readout you wish - percentage of output, output in watts, input voltage, output voltage, battery time. I have it set to be constantly lit to read out the percentage of power output to get an idea how much power is being drained and also because it looks neat.
This is a really big and heavy unit, when you get it you have to connect the battery. It's fairly easy but the battery is heavy so lay the unit on it's side, slide out the battery and connect the red wire to it's electrical pin, slide the cover back on and plug the unit into a wall. It's not complicated at all and ensures you get a battery that is not drained.
Customer Review: Battery with data
Summary: 5 Stars
After a couple of earlier incarnations of UPS backup products and a bit of scouting, I selected the APC RS1500LCD 1500VA unit for my home office computer. (Thanks to other Amazon reviewers for steering me to precisely the right model; there are many similar offerings from APC). I was not particularly impressed with earlier versions of APC's Power Chute software and didn't install it this time. After plugging in both of my Dell towers into this unit, the readout tells me exactly how much power I'm drawing. Which brings me to the truly outstanding feature of this battery backup: a data readout. You can scroll through the screens and see various data, but the most useful for me is how much power I'm using and when the last power failure was, not to mention the quality of the current you're using. I also like the cable surge protection.
So far, the power has gone out here in stormy Florida a couple of times since I've had the APC 1500, and the unit handled it flawlessly. I have a home generator system, and the APC is perfect for keeping my computers, router, and cable modem up and running while the generator fires up and supplies auxiliary power. It also works great for the power flickers we get here sometimes.
My one slight complaint is that there is not much room to plug in too many of those annoying power blocks that so many peripherals use. I bought a heavy gauge 3 foot extension cord to address the plug space issue.
Reliable backup with surge protection and a data screen that lets you know what is going on. I highly recommend this incarnation from APC.
Customer Review: RS1500 and Mac Pro: perfect combination
Summary: 5 Stars
The RS1500 (BR1500LCD) is the perfect companion to my 1st gen Mac Pro (2.66Ghz dual core/dual Xeon, 4 SATA drives, ATI 4870 graphics) and 23" HD Cinema Display. The Pro takes ~190 watts at idle, and the display takes ~50 watts, for a combined 240-watt load, leaving plenty of capacity for other peripherals. This allows for about 20-25 minutes battery runtime, more than enough to cover those short-term outages when running video rendering and compression. (BTW, when the Mac Pro is in sleep mode, the power draw is so low as to not even register on the APC's wattage meter.)
I think it's worth getting an RS model primarily due to the AVR (over-voltage) protection; this can be much more damaging than undervolt conditions. The RS models have both boost AND trim protection without using the battery as noted here on APC's site (look under "Back-UPS RS Features & Benefits":
[...]
I paid $188, price is now up a small bit, but still worth it considering the gear it's protecting.
Also, Macintosh users do not need to install the PowerChute software. When the RS1500's USB cable is connected, a "UPS" tab will appear in the Energy Saver Preference pane (confirmed at least in OSX 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard), offering several more options than what's given by PowerChute. I prefer the option to initiate shutdown when battery level is less than 10%, as opposed to minutes remaining (which can vary widely based on load) or other choices.
Good quality replacement batteries can be currently found for ~$55 or less, as opposed to APC's $85 charge.