South African businesses deal with a challenge that most international IT advice completely ignores: load shedding. And while most business owners have figured out how to keep the lights on and the kettle boiling during Stage 4, far fewer have properly protected their IT infrastructure.
The damage load shedding does to business technology is real, cumulative, and expensive.
What Load Shedding Actually Does to Your Hardware
- Sudden power cuts cause hard drives to fail, especially in older servers and desktop computers
- Power surges when electricity returns can fry motherboards, network switches, and routers
- Repeated power cycling shortens the lifespan of every electrical component significantly
- NAS drives and servers that lose power mid-write can corrupt data or entire file systems
- UPS batteries that are never tested or replaced give a false sense of security and fail when needed most
The Right Protection for Your Business
The solution depends on the size and nature of your business, but the core components are the same:
- A quality UPS for every server, desktop, and critical network device, sized correctly for the load
- Surge protection on every power point used by IT equipment
- Regular UPS battery testing and replacement on a scheduled cycle
- Cloud-based or offsite backup so a hardware failure does not mean permanent data loss
- For businesses with servers, a generator or solar solution with automatic switchover for extended outages
The Cloud Advantage During Load Shedding
One of the most practical arguments for moving business systems to the cloud is load shedding resilience. When your data lives in Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or a cloud server, a power cut at your office does not take your data down with it. Staff can continue working from home or on mobile devices while the office is dark.
We help businesses in South Africa design IT setups that keep working regardless of what Eskom is doing that day.
Do not wait for a power surge to take out your server. Contact DelTrix Technology on 0716763026 or support@deltrixtech.co.za to assess and protect your setup today.