Hardware

REVIEW: How Does the Tripp Lite UPS 550VA 300W Perform During Power Outages?

What IT departments need to know to protect students, faculty and data from downtime.

Carlos Soto is an award-winning reviewer and journalist with 20 years of experience covering technology and business within various sectors and industries.

Like most enterprises, colleges and universities are heavily focused on preventing cyberattacks and the downtime that follows successful attacks. Part of this focus on business continuity and disaster recovery should include understanding the critical role of an uninterruptible power supply for minimizing downtime and protecting data.

A UPS provides battery-derived electrical output during blackouts or voltage boosts, mitigating operational brownouts and the effects of over-voltages.

For this purpose, the Tripp Lite UPS 550VA 300W is impressive in every aspect, from protection to alerts. The line-interactive UPS offers complete protection from blackouts, brownouts and surges on both AC and telephone or DSL line connections. The Automatic Voltage Regulation maintains 230 volts of nominal output during brownouts as low as 159 volts and over-voltages up to 282 volts.

Multiple Lines and Outlets Protect Data During Emergencies

With six C13-type outlets total, you have more than enough space to protect your most important university computers and mobile devices. The three battery-supported outlets protect computers, monitors and vital system peripherals. That complements the three additional surge suppression-only outlets that can safeguard printers and other system accessories.

The Tripp Lite UPS also provides the power-handling ability of about 550 volt-ampere per kilogram (or 300 watts), which supports a variety of PCs, workstations and other assorted electronics. In my tests, the Tripp Lite provides power for long periods of time, supporting a half load of 275VA for 10 minutes and a full load of 550VA for three minutes. This is more than enough time to safely save data and power down electronics. More impressive, we found that the Tripp Lite UPS also supports emergency power to certain computers for about 17 minutes under blackout conditions.

The Tripp Lite unit also provides built-in single telephone or DSL line surge suppression to protect telecom devices, mobile devices and tablets. The HID-compliant USB port enables full integration with built-in power management and auto shutdown features for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X devices.

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Avoiding Data Loss with a Safe Shutdown

Arguably the most important feature found in testing is the PowerAlert software and cabling.

The software provides safe and unattended shutdown without data loss during extended outages. This feature is essential to business continuity and provides peace of mind to IT staff in case of outages.

Colleges and universities, like most organizations, may be focused primarily on preventing cyberattacks, but by including the Tripp Lite 550VA 300W Battery Backup in their disaster recovery and prevention plans, they can also take a big step toward preventing unforeseen downtime.

SPECIFICATIONS

Interfaces: 1 x management (USB), four-pin USB-A
Power Provided: 300 watts
Power Capacity: 550 volt-ampere per kilogram
Output Connector Qty: six
Surge Suppression: Yes
Dimension: 11x5.7x3.5 inches
Weight: 10.36 pounds