UPS worth it?

[pcslookout]

Is a UPS worth buying ?

What are the advantages?

 

[boomerang]

I have a bunch of them spread across two residences. Here's the reasons why I bought them. All are centered around multiple power blips.

My surround sound receiver when power cycled several times does a reset of all my settings for speaker distance, levels and inputs. It's a PITA to reset.

I have a Synology NAS and a switch in the basement as well as an alarm panel. I saw an advantage to not having those power cycling repeatedly with multiple power blips. Especially the Synology.

My modem and router at both residences were not always syncing with each other when we had power blips. I want a reliable Internet connection at both to monitor cameras, temperature monitors and thermostats. Both residences have Asus routers and they, IMO are at the heart of the problem but that's a story for another forum. (And I've told it there.)

At one residence I would loose connection to my Foscam. It could not deal with multiple rapid power cycles. I would have to contact a neighbor to enter the condo and power cycle it.

I have five total spread across two residences.

 

[MustISO]

Yes, they are worth it for desktop PCs. Laptops since they have batteries don't need it but for a desktop it's a must IMO.

If you never, ever lose power than don't spend the money otherwise do it.

 

[lakedude]

The disadvantage is that batteries don't last forever. At work our UPSes tend to be less reliable than the computers they are protecting so they cause us some trouble but in fairness we are not properly maintaining them. They run till they die.

If your power is reliable a UPS can be a bit of a waste of money.

If your power is not reliable I expect a UPS is invaluable in which case make sure you plan for the expense of a UPS as well as maintenance or replacement.

 

[XavierMace]

Maybe it's just a regional thing, but personally I don't find buying a UPS for my home PC for the one time a year I MIGHT lose power at the house to be worth it. Especially not a UPS capable of keeping the rig running for more than 30 seconds. I've yet to lose any data from a power outage.

I DO have a proper UPS for the server rack but there's a lot more equipment and data at risk there.