Surge Protectors are bullshit, right?

[Caiyuo]

assuming yes, is there any reason to bother with them at all over power strips when I need extra outlets? Is there anything I should be using instead with something important/expensive attached? I remember I think Darus saying short of like a ground for your entire house you're fucked anyway so I wanted to figure this out before spending the money.

[hey]

Uh, no?

[bungiefan]

They won't protect from lightning strikes, but they'll save you from power irregularities that cause over voltage. For equipment like a computer or a new game console though, I wouldn't go with just a surge protector, I'd go with a battery backup UPS. Surge protectors don't protect from brownouts and other low voltage, which can still break your electronics. A battery backup kicks in when the voltage goes low and keeps you at proper voltage, while giving you time to save your work and properly shut down (which would keep your Xbox from needing an FFXI reinstall).

Surge protectors are rated in how many joules of surge they will protect from. A battery backup runs all power through the battery for regularity, so a surge will kill the battery before it gets to your electronics, and that will shield them very well.

Make sure you get enough wattage on the battery backup, as they will overload and not let you turn things on if you exceed the wattage. You also usually want to replace the battery every 3-4 years, but they're relatively inexpensive, and a $60-100 battery is better than a $1000 computer when replacement is concerned.

[Darus Grey]

They're bullshit, as I've said in the past. Regardless of what they're rated as, none of these companies have standardized ways to rate and measure it, so what they say is completely misleading to begin with(that is to say, since you have no way to verify the claims made as to their ratings, such ratings are useless, and most are as good as no protection). Surge protecors are nothing more than glorified power strips. Buy the cheapest one with the number of outlets you want.

Anything with automated voltage regulation will increase the average mean time to failure(AMTF) of electronics, but to be honest, most electronics have a AMTF well beyond their usable lifetime for other reasons. An UPS will stop a non lightning strike "surge" though, typically at the cost of the UPS and the potential for it to catch on fire(which is what they're supposed to do as the surge disipates into a massive amount of heat energy).
That is to say, having a computer directly plugged into an outlet, technically, is lowering its lifespan...but we're talking about reducing AMTF by 20%~...maybe. So that CPU might fail after 45 years instead of 60... see what I'm saying?

For lightning strikes, absolutely nothing will protect you(short of a really elaborate industrial strength grounding unit, which would be built into the home, and isn't cost effective.).

[Boyiee]

Isn't the problem with a battery backup that you're powering a 600w+ computer as well as other things, so you only have like a minute before the battery is drained?

[Darus Grey]

That's if you're actually using them as backups(which yes, the batteries will last a hilariously short time), most people use them for their AVR functionality, where the entire unit basically acts as a capacitor(in that sense that we often use capacitors well designing electronics, to smooth power flow to components by having a reservoir to draw from).

[Caiyuo]

Thanks, Darus, I was pretty sure I remembered you saying the same in the past and just couldn't remember the details.

As for battery backup, I have one and in my scenario it works well since the house is on an automated generator so it only needs to keep things going for about 15 seconds before the generator takes over.

[Cephius]

Isn't the problem with a battery backup that you're powering a 600w+ computer as well as other things, so you only have like a minute before the battery is drained?

Like Darus said they're more useful for regulating the power flow to the component. For computers, which are extremely sensitive to fluctuations in power, a UPS is really useful for peace of mind. I have a 850W UPS and I'll maybe get 5 minutes run time after the power goes out, but that's more than enough time to save what I'm working on and shut it down.

[Kaisha]

Any recommended brands as far as UPS go?

I've been considering picking myself up one after years of living off shit rural electricity in a very old house, even though I really haven't had any hardware failures......outside of my bedroom lightbulbs having a very short life span.

[Cephius]

Cyberpower and APC are top tier, I wouldn't trust anything else.

[Caiyuo]

APC's site can help you figure out how to ballpark what you'll need as well: http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/

[Kryssan]

They're bullshit, as I've said in the past. Regardless of what they're rated as, none of these companies have standardized ways to rate and measure it, so what they say is completely misleading to begin with(that is to say, since you have no way to verify the claims made as to their ratings, such ratings are useless, and most are as good as no protection). Surge protecors are nothing more than glorified power strips. Buy the cheapest one with the number of outlets you want.

While I agree that what most people buy a surge protector for is not what it is designed to do, nor are they 'long term solutions' since the MOVs they probably use are going to degrade over time regardless of actual surges, where are you coming up with this 'no standardized ways to rate and measure it'? Since 2008 UL1449 (the 3rd edition) is an ANSI standard... what kind of 'standard' are you looking for? Or is the complaint really just against what they say it can do?

For lightning strikes, absolutely nothing will protect you(short of a really elaborate industrial strength grounding unit, which would be built into the home, and isn't cost effective.).

Typically arrestors aren't built into the home, but rather the incoming power feed at your meter box (assuming we're talking about good ones, and not the ones you buy for your main line distro box at Home Depot or the like). Still, I agree, a real lightning hit is going to torch anything - which is why the high end versions of these devices actually power down things during lightning storms (and of course is not something you need or can afford, if you're worried just unplug it). Additionally whole house units won't protect against equipment surges in the house, but assuming your electrical wiring isn't total crap and you have appropriate loads on separate circuits this won't be an issue for a home.


Me personally I just buy UPS on things I don't want to lose power; which leads me to here:

Isn't the problem with a battery backup that you're powering a 600w+ computer as well as other things, so you only have like a minute before the battery is drained?

Again, quality of the system matters here. You have to buy something that will handle what you're putting on it, so you have to know what you're putting on it and be able to do some math for Amp-Hour conversions yourself, or know someone that can. Batteries are another one of those less understood people just accept it things with electronic consumables. The UPS I use for my server machines can run for about 5 mins before they quit, so more than long enough to stop any processes without me around and shut it down. I also use battery modules on my RAID controllers, which most people obviously don't need it or care that much.




Completely off-topic, but still waiting for HDD prices to come down after the floods, I've only got 3TB left on my RAID... not willing to pay that much, not when it already costs so much for the rest of the system.

[Darus Grey]

Companies don't actually use UL1449(or others), they frequently just rate for Joules often with no explaination in the documentation about how they came to that conclusion(like all ANSI, ISO, IEEE, etc, standards, they're voluntary). This varies by manufacturer, but frankly anything that falls into the "consumer" price range is just worthless in my experience, hell you often will open them up and find they don't even HAVE MOVs. Even the good manufacturers simply aren't trustworthy, so I just assume I'm buying 0 protection, it's safer.

Per point two I consider the meter "part of my home" ;0 I didn't mean literally built into the wiring or those shitty home depot things.

Also feeling you on the HDD thing =/ I need to add another 15tb to my array and am cringing at the cost.

[Qeomash]

All the computers at work (small retail buisness, 14 total computers) use a UPS because we're on the shitty end of the local power grid. Used to be even worse at our old location, but we still get random short blips in power. We have to replace the battery in each unit roughly once a year and they cost us around $20, so $30 retail or so. They are all Tripp Lite brand except for the server which runs two (the previous guy in my job was utterly paranoid) APC backups. I just recently had to replace the batteries in one of the APCs, and that's been two or more years since it was last replaced.

I've honestly had no problem with the newer Tripp Lites besides a shorter battery life than I'd like (I assume that's partly because of our shitty power). Some of the older ones, however, seem to have died completely even after a new battery is installed.

In a year or so, though, we will be taking the store off the grind completely with solar panels.

tl;dr: Tripp Lites are okay for mediocre stuff, but go APC for better performance.

[LinktheDeme]

I don't know exactly what surge protectors do but I will say when my building was struct by lightning everything not in a surge protector was fried. Lost my N64 and a TV rest were in a surge protector and were okay. Not saying I don't believe they're absolute shit just saying that is what happened for me.

[Coren]

My company has had pretty good success with UPS systems. Usually we recommend APC (you can get the 600va ones from sams for $50). While no surge suppressor will stop a direct lightning bolt, you're never getting hit with a direct bolt unless it hits your house. Typically by the time it hits a pole or tree, dissipates over area and goes through a few transformers on the lines, gets to your house and gets to your stuff, the energy is substantially reduced. Additionally, although it's been a while since I've heard of anybody filing a claim, many of the companies will warranty against surge damage, including lightning. Where we live (in the southeast where we get lightning storms every afternoon in the spring) UPS systems appear to extend the life of most computer hardware.