Do I need some kind of power conditioner or UPS?

In one of my boxen, both my power supply and network card died while in overnight hibernation - why?

And: What must I do to appease the electricity Gods so that I don't lose more hardware?

In my home I've got... five computers in various states of use (monthly through to continuous), and I've lost power supplies for all of them, including the laptop, generally in lumps (several components around the same time). These losses have also included other bits and bobs, including a hard drive.

Do I need some kind of power conditioner? Those power-boards with surge protection, that's just a marketing lie, right? And a cheap UPS isn't going to filter the electricity any, is it? So what do I do, spend up big?

Solution 1:

I'm in an area with variable power and daily brownouts, and lost a lot of gear like you. I added a 2u APC rackmount UPS, big thing, and put nearly everything on it. It was wildly successful. The UPS would go on and off all day long, even when I could see no other evidence of power fluctuation. No more hardware losses. So I went and bought more of these big UPSs and put all my stereo gear on one, and other electronic clusters on another. The damage to my gear stopped.

I didn't buy brand new APC UPSs, I waited till they had sales and I bought reconditioned units. That kept the cost down.

Bottom line - I think you need something to smooth your electricity. I don't think it is a marketing lie, but I think you need more than the consumer versions of UPSs available.

Solution 2:

My experience:

• Cheap "surge suppresser" powerbars: useless.
• Expensive "surge suppressor" powerbars: not quite useless. They will protect from momentary low spikes, but can't do anything about dips, brownouts, or blackouts.
• Cheap UPS (ie APC Back-UPS): reasonable assuming you are not putting too much load on them and the environment they run in is reasonably (electrically) clean. I use them for my workstations at home, and they get fresh batteries every two years whether they need them or not, which they always do. I would not put server or mission-critical gear on such a UPS.
• Mid-range UPS (ie APC Smart-UPS): adequate entry-level server protection. The problem is that you either over-buy UPS (ie a Smart-UPS 3000 powering one web server) or you end up gradually acquiring way more computer than the Smart-UPS can reasonably drive (ie: the same Smart-UPS 3000 powering a NetApp 760 with eight fully populated DS-7 shelves). Management (snmp, plus some form of software to deal with the load) is mandatory. Battery lifespan management is mandatory.

After that, the sky's the limit but you will end up having to install special electrical circuits to power them. The software to deal with them is also astronomically priced.

I always complain to customers that they are under-protected because they almost always are. And when they balk at the cost, I ask them what the cost to the business will be if "whatever is currently inadequately protected" fails.

For home, I currently only have one workstation -- only need one, thanks to VMware -- and it has its own BackUPS-750. The rest of the "networking gear" (one Linksys wireless router and one cable modem) runs off of a old Belkin 500Va UPS that currently needs a battery refresh.

So, bottom line:

• Yes, get a UPS. Even an entry level one is better than the nothing you currently have.
• If you are not running a particular computer, physically disconnect it from the mains unless you require some form of wake-on-LAN.