joseph_ellis85•1mo agoProlific Poster

Spent $300 on a UPS and it saved my butt twice already

I was lazy about putting a UPS on my bench for like a year. Figured the power in my shop was solid enough. Then last month a transformer blew down the street and my test bench PC just flickered and died mid-flash. Lost a whole BIOS recovery I was in the middle of. That cost me a customer and about 4 hours of rework. So I grabbed a CyberPower 1500VA from Best Buy for $300. Last week a breaker tripped in the middle of a drive clone and the UPS kept everything running long enough for me to save the files then shut down clean. Already paid for itself in my book. Anyone else running cheap surge protectors still or did you learn the hard way too?

2 comments

2 Comments

eva_adams681mo ago

My $30 surge protector is still working fine after 5 years.

nora_walker571mo ago

Buddy of mine had the exact same attitude about UPS units. He ran a little home server for his family's photos and documents off a power strip from the dollar store. A storm knocked out power for just a second and the surge fried his hard drive controller. Lost four years of baby pictures and tax returns. He spent the next week on the phone with data recovery places and ended up paying way more than $300 to get maybe half of it back. Swears it was the most expensive lesson he ever learned.