Here's a nightmare scenario: Your IT system is humming along as usual when a sudden short-circuit, line failure, or lightning strike completely disables your hardware – possibly even frying it in the process. If you're like most businesses, you can't afford the massive downtime and massive replacement/repair bills such a situation would entail. Let's look at some steps you can take to prevent them, courtesy of our Austin tech support  specialists at Gravity Systems.

Surge protectors can keep electrical spikes from damaging your expensive electronics. A power surge can can take down an entire Local Area Network in just one-millionth of a second. Such a surge can come from anywhere – from electrical storms to rodents chewing through cables. In fact, your system endures countless non-critical surges on a regular basis, gradually causing the equipment to deteriorate until it fails outright. Adding surge protectors to your hardware, and replacing them periodically, can help you protect every part of your IT network.

What can you do about those minor everyday voltage swings that wear down your system? You can invest in voltage regulators. A voltage regulator smooths out the flow of power to your components, which is especially valuable if your facility suffers from constant voltage variations (“dirty power”).

Even with surge protectors in place, a serious outage can knock out your system, possibly wrecking your hard drives and/or corrupting the valuable data on those drives. Ideally, you want your computers to keep receiving power no matter what, at least until you can turn everything off safely. That's where an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) comes into play. These devices have their own internal batteries that keep the power coming to a computer even for several minutes when the main power source goes out.

Need help choosing the right electrical protection strategies? Ask Gravity Systems!

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