Anti-static wrist straps: are they worth it?
Here's where experience may lead you astray. Static discharges can create partial burn-throughs in those nanometer lines inside a chip. So the part may not fail immediately. But it can certainly cause premature failure down the line. So if your experience tells you that you've never "fried" any parts while working on them - what you don't know is how many will prematurely fail in the future. I always use the straps in a professional environment, but for low value home stuff I generally just ground myself.
I've never worn one and never fried anything that I'm aware of.
I always make sure I touch the power supply and ground myself (relative to the computer) prior to touching any of the static sensitive components.
If I were working in a very staticky environment- lots of rugs, cold dry air, etc, I'd potentially reconsider (or ground my bench), but I'd probably avoid that kind of location for my workspace anyway.
I can't say whether or not they have saved any hardware I've been working on, but I have a suspicion they did me some good when (in my trainee days) I managed to electrocute myself on an old AT power supply. I think the antistatic band provided a good earth for the charge rather than it crossing my chest. So, if your a young idiot who unplugs the wrong power supply, you should definitely wear one!
- Do you use an antistatic wrist strap when working on hardware?
Yes.
- Do they really work?
Yes.
- Have you ever fried some hardware that would have been saved if you had been wearing one?
Yes. Once, a long time ago. That "proved" the issue to me very quickly in a very painful fashion.
- I know some people who wear them religiously and others who say they are a waste of time.
If you don't care about the dollar amount of the hardware you're attempting to protect, then yes, it's a waste of time.
Frying an $800 high-end RAID controller card because someone didn't take anti-static precautions, well...let's just say that was a bad choice.
I now wear one whenever I work on equipment.
It takes only a few hundred volts to fry a circuit. To feel a static discharge, you need to have thousands of volts. In other words, you can kill chips easily without knowing it.
When working on my own hardware, I never bother to wear one, nor have I ever had an issue. But when I am at work and I am toying around in enterprise class servers and storage that cost upwards of $00k, I generally wear one.
In fact, many replacement parts I receive now (namely from Network Appliance), include a crappy disposable static strap. When they do that, it shows you that not only do they value the use of one, but also gives you no excuse not to use it.
I would say, it would be in your best interest to use one when working on someone else's hardware, but use your own discretion when working on your own.