18 Jun
2002
18 Jun
'02
7:13 a.m.
On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, Lawrence LeMay wrote:
> > The really amazing part to all this is that
they apparently haven't had
> > a power failure in 18 years...
> Ever heard of a UPS?
Yes, I hear UPS's all the time, down in the
machine room. They're the boxes
that are always beeping to tell us their very few years old batteries arent
working anymore. We connect them to our uninterruptable power, which is fed
by two separate power stations and some device switches power immediately
if one feed loses power. That device hasnt worked properly in the 12 years
its been installed...
Heh. The big APC UPS at the ISP I worked at we had running bets that in a
power outage it'd last maybe 12 seconds.
When the power outage came, who'd a thought? 15 minutes! A record.
The last I heard, the longest uptime for any machine was a Digital Tandem
in a mine complex in Arizona, 22 years, and that was back in 2000.
Not surprisingly it was Compaq dudes trying to sell me an AlphaServer at
the time, but I believe him.
JP