Let's start with something basic: the juice. Since I've burned through several motherboards due to dirty power, I'm now pretty paranoid about the quality of the electricity that runs my sole home machine.
The first thing in line from the outlet is an old APC UPS (thanks Wendell Wilson). APC doesn't make this particular model any more, the 520ES, but it's been a godsend. I don't actually use it for its intended purpose, to give me five minutes of battery power in case of a blackout, but I use it because it's a great power buffer.
The only thing I connect to the UPS is an APC surge protector. I use the PR08T2, which fits eight devices and seems to be as solid as a rock. I especially like the fact that APC's "Equipment Protection Policy" will reimburse me, should the product fail, for up to $10,000 in lost equipment. That's far more than what I've got hooked to it, so that's a good deal for me.
This may seem redundant, since you can get these devices joined together, and you can get them from other vendors (this isn't a commercial for APC, but a recognition that, for me, they do great work). But I've dealt with a wailing wife who lost months of work when a motherboard went belly-up due to power microfluctuations, and I've had to buy a new machine in a hurry and reconstruct a lot of data when earlier machines fried. So I'd rather be safe than sorry. Since I've been running this rig, I've had absolutely no problems.
No comments:
Post a Comment