Do I really need a UPS?
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 13:44 last edited by
A power outage during a critical system write can play havoc on your system.
Risk vs. Reward. Your call.
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 13:48 last edited by
We lost two motherboards on two separate PC's, most likely during thunderstorms, and the tech recommended getting a UPS. We haven't had any problems since.
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A power outage during a critical system write can play havoc on your system.
Risk vs. Reward. Your call.
wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 13:48 last edited by@mark said in Do I really need a UPS?:
A power outage during a critical system write can play havoc on your system.
Risk vs. Reward. Your call.
Yeah, I know. The worst thing that can happen is that it crashes the hard drive and makes it unbootable, right?
I can restore it in about 3 hours. I get it that professionals can't afford that kind of downtime. I can.
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 13:49 last edited by
Well you just talked yourself out of getting one.
I didn't do that.
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 13:51 last edited by
When I say 'lost motherboard', the PC was completely unusable. The HDD wasn't damaged, but it fried something on the main board.
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When I say 'lost motherboard', the PC was completely unusable. The HDD wasn't damaged, but it fried something on the main board.
wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 13:52 last edited by@Doctor-Phibes said in Do I really need a UPS?:
When I say 'lost motherboard', the PC was completely unusable. The HDD wasn't damaged, but it fried something on the main board.
Wouldn't a surge protector accomplish the same thing?
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 13:53 last edited by
If it's just a battery issue, what does the battery cost?
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 13:53 last edited by
@Jolly said in Do I really need a UPS?:
If it's just a battery issue, what does the battery cost?
About $80. But, I'm not 100% sure it's that. Like I said, it's an old unit (>8 years).
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 13:54 last edited by Axtremus
You don't necessarily need a UPS, but wouldn't be a bad idea to at least have a surge protector. Another step up is a voltage regulator and something that smooths out "noisy" power sources. Surge protection aside, I am not familiar with consumer electronics that offer those two other functions independently, but good UPS units typically have all those built in.
I have a setup where I have a laser printer hooked up to the same circuit as a desktop/server computer along with a UPS. Every time I "wake" the laser printer up, it draws enough power that it would trigger the UPS. In that case, the UPS protects my desktop/server from the transient power irregularities caused by the laser printer waking up, and avoid a needless restart for the desktop/server machine. (And yes, @mark , I use CyberPower units for the more important stuff; though I still have older/smaller APC units in service as well.)
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 13:56 last edited by
A small UPS is not that expensive. All you need is surge protection and just a few minutes run time.
I think it's cheap insurance.
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 13:57 last edited by mark
You need power conditioning and very good ($$$) power conditioning to prevent that. Lightning is very hard to stop and very expensive. Most good UPS have better power conditioning than a typical "surge protector". A surge usually occurs when something in the power chain unexpectedly puts excessive load on the power supply.
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 14:00 last edited by
I've never had a UPS and never had a problem. But we also have latop computers used in different areas of the house. Just good quality surge suppressors. If I were going to invest in something on that order I'd likely go for a whole house generator.
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 14:04 last edited by
Very few companies and even fewer private persons need a UPS.
Today's servers and file systems in general cope well with sudden power losses. If one has valuable data, a backup is more than sufficient for almost all situations.
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@Doctor-Phibes said in Do I really need a UPS?:
When I say 'lost motherboard', the PC was completely unusable. The HDD wasn't damaged, but it fried something on the main board.
Wouldn't a surge protector accomplish the same thing?
wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 14:09 last edited by Doctor Phibes@George-K said in Do I really need a UPS?:
@Doctor-Phibes said in Do I really need a UPS?:
When I say 'lost motherboard', the PC was completely unusable. The HDD wasn't damaged, but it fried something on the main board.
Wouldn't a surge protector accomplish the same thing?
We had surge protectors on both PC's, based on that theory. I wasn't convinced they'd done what they were supposed to do. It's possible it wasn't a surge, but I figure for the sake of $100, what the heck.
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results
(We use Cyberpower UPS's)
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When I say 'lost motherboard', the PC was completely unusable. The HDD wasn't damaged, but it fried something on the main board.
wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 14:33 last edited by@Doctor-Phibes said in Do I really need a UPS?:
When I say 'lost motherboard', the PC was completely unusable. The HDD wasn't damaged, but it fried something on the main board.
Buy a Mac, bitch.
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 15:09 last edited by
@jon-nyc said in Do I really need a UPS?:
@Doctor-Phibes said in Do I really need a UPS?:
When I say 'lost motherboard', the PC was completely unusable. The HDD wasn't damaged, but it fried something on the main board.
Buy a Mac, bitch.
That's like telling somebody who was raped by a priest to join the scientologists.
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 21:54 last edited by
All that has been said on this is irrelevant.
When buying anything, look for the most colored, blinking lights. Lots of LED's that blink with importance. Steady blue with a nearby blinking yellow, plus a handful of green, just ooze importance. Nothing is more dissatisfying than a computer gadget with only one, or no, lights. It's like disappointment in a box.
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wrote on 23 Apr 2020, 22:49 last edited by
He's a Mac user. They prefer the flashing lights to be in the non-visible spectrum.