How best to power on equipment in loft space

[SteveO]

I have a few NAS drives in my loft along with my switch, patch panel, WLAN router and Virgin broadband box. Occasionally we get a power cut and I need to go up into the loft and reboot the NAS drives as they don't appear to re-power once the power is restored. Everything else come back on when the power is restored but not the NAS boxes.

Just wondering if others have any ideas how this could be addressed so that I don't need to go up into the loft to power the boxes back on?

Thanx guys.

[WilliamTM]

Have you considered a UPS? It should keep most of that up and running for about 10-30 minutes or so, maybe more/less depending on the specs of the UPS.

There's also the upside that you'll still be able to use the internet on any laptops/PDAs/etc while the power is out.

Of course, that's presuming the power cuts are quick, and don't last more then that time.

[SteveO]

Yeah I have a small Belkin UPS at the moment for my old server but haven't utilised it in this environment yet. Will hook this up in the next couple of days and it should provide enough juice for half an hour at least I'd have thought (it was designed to hold a server for about 30/40 minutes so it should be able to handle what I've got).

Thanx for that...anyone else got other suggestions as I'm not sure if the powercuts are quick ones as we've had a few trip our main breaker and this has resulted in a power outage probably lasting longer.

[dpeaco]

SteveO

Are the NAS drives plugged into the mains? If so, you could use one of the remote control socket outlets such as these from cpc here (link is shown in full below just in case you need it).

AEI SECURITY|RA-101|MAINS SWITCH - REMOTE CONTROL | CPC (Other suppliers do similar versions.)

These plug into your existing socket and then your appliances plug into the socket provided. They use an RF remote control to switch power to the socket on or off. As its RF you don't need line of sight so it should work in your loft without you going up there.

dpeaco