Plugstrips with protected switches

Question

We recently had a full power outage and had to shut down basically all devices in the server room.

Being a smaller org, we still have some very small business practices im working to change over time, like having a bunch of external disks in production use. In this case, all those disks needed to be powered down, but some of them were connected to the primary rack PDUs and had to be unplugged manually, and then replugged later. What would have been very nice would be to have some/most of these types of devices on their on plugstrip for easy control.

Does anyone know of plugstrips (bonus points for ones that do a good job managing wallwarts) that have covered switches, to prevent accidental switching?

Answer 1

Depends what your power requirements are (V, VA, ...) as well as physical size and characteristics (length, one switch per strip, one per socket, ...) but there are such things. I'm from a 250V world so products I know are not equivalent but a quick web search showed up a Tripp-Lite product for US power. Do a search on local suppliers and manufacturers for your requirement, but it is possible to find these.

There are also distribution PDUs that do not have physical on-off switches but are controlled by software. These may also provide support for sequenced power-up, to mitigate against overlarge surges that could occur when all the devices are powered on at once. Just one example is http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=AP7920&tab=documentation

At the very low-cost end, I can't find examples of any from web searches but, in the past, I've used a simple self-adhesive plastic clip that goes over a socket switch. I think these were sold to stop children (or adults) accidentally switching off an appliance such as a fridge. Of course, using anything like this has to be balanced against delay in switching off in an emergency.