APC Back-UPS ES 500 Backup Battery and Surge Protector

by APC

Product Details

Supplementary Guide [19kb PDF]

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Product Manual [84kb PDF]

• Item Weight: 15 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 15 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00006HYUB
• Item model number: BE500U
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 8, 2005

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The APC Back-UPS ES is a battery backup and surge protector for home and office electronic equipment. With six outlets and built-in phone/fax/modem lines (DSL compatible) your valuable equipment is protected from surges and lightning. With the USB connector, it's easy to install the system software. Audible alarms and building faulty wiring notifications add to your ease of mind. The status LED's will keep you informed of the operational status of the Back-UPS ES. The included battery is user replaceable, making the surge protector easy to maintain. This package comes with a wall mounting template and cord management straps.

What's in the Box
Surge protector, CD with software, cord management straps, free trial of anti-virus, USB cable, wall mounting template and a user's manual.

Product Description

The APC Back-UPS ES is a battery backup and surge protector for home and office electronic equipment. With six outlets and built-in phone/fax/modem lines (DSL compatible) your valuable equipment is protected from surges and lightning. With the USB connector, it's easy to install the system software. Audible alarms and building faulty wiring notifications.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

135 of 139 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Product--Exceeded My Expectations, September 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: APC Back-UPS ES 500 Backup Battery and Surge Protector (Electronics)

This power supply will run my equipment for 21 minutes, more than long enough for me to switch to a back up generator. If I ignore the power outage, it automatically backs up files. In addition, it will kick in for low and high voltage conditions, and bridges those annonying one and two second outages that cause reboots. All in all, it is a real convenience.

And the alarm CAN be controlled. It can be shut off entirely. It can also be set to remain silent when the PC is off or hibernating. It can also be set to remain silent between a given hour and another given hour.

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Product - But Mac users beware, February 7, 2006

By 

W. Schomaker "smaker" (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: APC Back-UPS ES 500 Backup Battery and Surge Protector (Electronics)

I purchased this unit after reading the reviews here. The unit works very well and is easy to install. One point mentioned in earlier reviews, however, needs to be revisited and clarified.

The on-battery alarm CANNOT be disabled with the software if you are running it on a Mac. The alam CAN be disabled with software if you are running it on a PC.

This means that if you plan to use this unit on a Mac and you really want to disable the annoying alarm that beeps every 30 seconds when the system goes to battery power you have one choice: Install the unit and software on a PC first and disable the alarm through the PC interface. Then install the unit and software on your Mac with the alarm now disabled. If you don't have a PC available to act as a SWITCH like this, then you are out of luck and you will have no way to turn off the ear-splitting alarm.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You can't go wrong, here..., August 22, 2005

By 

Budster (Oregon & New Mexico) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: APC Back-UPS ES 500 Backup Battery and Surge Protector (Electronics)

The ES 500 is a great little backup unit. Easy to use, long battery life (about 25 min. with a desktop PC plugged in; 2 hrs. with a notebook PC plugged into it). It includes full surge protector capabilities, so you won't need to buy another one of those. It also has several outlets which are widely-spaced so you can plug in transformers for your PC speakers, etc. without covering up a traditional outlet. And it protects your phone lines as well.

We use two of these in our retail shop: 1.) On our point-of-sale 'cash register' computer, and 2.) On our network equipment and DSL modem so that the Internet keeps working because our cash register is dependent on the Internet, and power flashes interupt 'net access. We live in a rural electric cooperative area which has a lot of "blinks," especially during thunderstorms and high wind situations.

At home, we also have it hooked up to our network/DSL equipment. (We use laptop PC's at home, so if the power goes out, we can still compute...at least we have some entertainment during an outage!) We also plug our Tivo and DVD recorder into one so that we don't have to reset them after each power outage (the battery will last several hours if that's all you have plugged into it).

BUT, don't think you need to suffer a complete failure for this product to be useful! When you use the included software to view occasional reports from the battery backup, you'll be amazed how many times the backup has to kick in to correct a "dirty power" situation.

If you compute in an area or building with "dirty" power that surges/spikes or "blinks," or simply has brownouts/voltage drops (and you might not even realize these are happening) this box will smooth it all out to the point that you might not even notice. Smooth power will definitely extend your computer's life.

Buy it, plug your old power strips into it, and forget it (unless you want to occasionally review the reports, in which case you need to hook it to your PC through a USB cable and install the included software). In about 3 years, the batteries will have exceeded their life and you'll have to buy another.

Warning: The "Computer running on battery power" beep alarm is LOUD. If you have the ES 500 connected to your PC via USB cord and have their software installed, you can disable the alarm, however. (But you don't have to run the software and have it hooked to a PC cable to enjoy backup battery power.)

As of this writing, the shipping is free (it weighs 14 lbs.), and Amazon has the lowest price anywhere, SO HOW CAN YOU GO WRONG? It could be the best $50 you ever spend...your computer will certainly think so.