Do you use an uninterruptible power supply with your desktop?

[Winter_Wolf]

I'm considering a desktop, but power outages, surges, and brown outs are apparently a thing at the new place. It's been my experience that the power problem happens right before I'm set to save, or repeatedly for an indeterminate stretch of time. Laptops, for all their failings, have built in protection through their batteries, which will last at least long enough to save and properly exit any programs if not ride out the power problems completely.

Do people use a UPS with their desktops at all? Do you generally think it's overkill? I mean, I'd love to save money on a computer that actually has beefy specs at the cost of portability, but less so if I'm dealing with outages screwing things up frequently.

[veti]

I don't, but I would if I thought my mains supply were likely to be as dodgy as yours sounds. Where I live, we get blackouts a couple of times a year, which is my idea of 'acceptable risk'. If it were more like a couple of times a month, I would certainly invest another $150 or so in a UPS.

[Winter_Wolf]

Our last outage was attributed to "wildlife got into the equipment". Which I suppose could be birds flying into a transformer, but for some reason I keep picturing a particularly high jumping deer getting over the razor wire chainlink security fence. Of course that's ridiculous, but there's a lot of wildlife of all kinds in the area.

We really need to get a licensed electrician out here, too. There are some really questionable outlets and switches, and a couple of "dead" outlets.

Anyone have personal experience recommendations on UPS brands/models?

[Sharoth]

I try to. APC is a good brand. Go for the higher end if you can that has batteries that you can remove and replace.

[Mando Knight]

I've been using an APC Pro 700 (https://www.amazon.com/APC-BR700G-Back-UPS-6-outlet-Uninterruptible/dp/B002RCNX8K/) that seems to work well enough.

[Gnoman]

I've seen power much, much cleaner than what you're describing wreck computers before (I know one guy that went through eight hard drives and two motherboards before adding a UPS, and he never noticed a thing other than his equipment breaking. Not one premature failure since). Even voltage fluctuations that you don't notice can cause problems over times. If you have a desktop, put a UPS on it.

[OracleofWuffing]

I have an APC Back-UPS 550, which got at a trade-in discount when my 350 model hit end of cycle.

I mean, it's nice to not freak out and close everything up every time you hear thunder coming in, but I've not really had a means of testing if it's useful? Way I see it, $60-80 for protecting $600-$1200 in hardware, why not?

[factotum]

I'd say it depends how unreliable your supply actually is. I've been living in my current house for 16 years now and can only recall maybe 2 or 3 occasions when the power went out, so to my mind a UPS would totally be overkill here--although I do use a surge protector. If I was having a situation where my power was going off weekly then yes, I'd probably get a UPS, if only to allow me to shut the machine down gracefully in the event of a power outage.

[Drumbum42]

Way I see it, $60-80 for protecting $600-$1200 in hardware, why not?

I couldn't agree more with this. It doesn't have to be a super expensive power supply, it just has to live long enough to allow you to quit your application and shut down. Some times there is an immediate power spike or voltage drop that happens right before the power goes out that can damage hardware, this has never happened to me, but I've seen the results.

Blackouts can mess with software. (Obviously, because you just unplugged a computer) I've seen hard drives turn unbootable because power went out and it trashed the file system. This can happen on Windows or Mac computers due to their file system type. I got a nice UPS after the power went out at my house 2 days in a row and couldn't be happier. The last thing I want to do is drop out of a game with my friends on a Saturday and do a surprise install from disk. That would ruin my weekend.

[Flickerdart]

I don't have a UPS, but I do have a surge protector.

[Binks]

I don't have a UPS, but I do have a surge protector.
Same here. I've lived in my house for 5+ years and seen 2 blackouts, so super low risk from my perspective. If it was annual (or more often) I probably would get one (especially with how cheap and easy to find they are these days) but I have no real need for one.

[mike201689]

If you value the information on your computer, you need ups.

[Tvtyrant]

I bought one after I moved to a 100 year old house and started experiencing the thrill of nearly constant surges (antique wiring is the best wiring). I lost a motherboard to power surges, bought a ups and never had another issue.

[valadil]

I've gone through two. When the second one died I just stopped caring. They only saved me during a brown/black out a handful of times and it just wasn't worth the cost.