Computer hardware company Cougar has just unveiled its new line of budget power supplies, Cougar SL. The SL series is promoted at up to 80 percent power efficient, with a silent 120 mm fan to dissipate heat from the power that isn’t efficiently used.
Power is delivered to the CPU and the graphics card through the 12 volt rail, which automatically divides the power for ideal stable operation, according to a review of the power supply on Tom’s Hardware.
The units will come in three sizes: 400 watt, 500 watt and 600 watt. In addition, the power supplies are rated for more than 100,000 hours, so the units will last.
Even though budget power supplies, the Cougar SL series comes with respectable power protection. It provides dual 12 volt output for high voltage stability, and it has a multi-protection design that includes over-voltage-protection (OVP), over-power-protection (OPP), under-voltage-protection (UVP), and short-circuit-protection (SCP).
There’s no word yet on specific pricing for the SL series.
Power protection is not usually the first thing that businesses consider when deploying information technology, but it should be.
A major data loss due to a bad power outage can cost a business up to 10 percent of its annual revenue, reported a recent article by Hummingbird Networks.
“Ten years ago, losing data just made your life inconvenient, or perhaps made it harder to file your taxes,” noted the Hummingbird Networks article. “Today, thanks to the myriad regulations on the books requiring you to store data for so many years, an accidental loss of data can open you up to governmental fines, or even lawsuits. It's vital you protect your data.”
While off-site backup through a cloud service provider is recommended for all businesses to ensure that data is not lost from a power failure, it is also crucial that businesses ensure that there is adequate provisions against power loss.
“One thing some people don't really understand about power outages is that the power is rarely cut smoothly,” wrote the Hummingbird piece. “Most of the time, when there's a sudden blackout, it's accompanied by a short but powerful surge in electricity that can disrupt or damage electronic systems. The power-up process also often involves a sudden surge.”
Downtime is what businesses consider when they usually imagine power failures, but equipment damage is also common and often hard to detect. Aside from a fried system, sometimes damage from power failures can cause subtle effects that can hamper performance without going overly noticed.
Using power supplies such as the Cougar SL series helps. But using backup power supplies and voltage regulators also goes a long way.
Edited by Jamie Epstein