are battery back up units necessary any more?
My UPC back up unit crashed. Is battery back up necessary any more or is surge protection adaquate?
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3), 24" 2.8 ghz intel core 2 duo
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Battery backup and surge protection serve two different purposes.
Battery backup provides a finite period of time (usually 3 to 15 minutes, depending on UPS size and amount of stuff connected) in which the computer can be safely shut down after there has been a loss of electrical power. Without that backup, the computer would stop working in the middle of whatever it was doing or being used for.
Surge protection guards against overvoltage conditions, such as a current spike, that can sometimes come through the electrical mains (example - when a car has an accident and brings down a pole).
A good UPS not only includes surge protection (they often have outlets which are surge protection only, in addition to those with that plus battery backup), it will also tailor the power supplied to the computer, keeping it within specified norms of frequency and voltage regardless of what comes into it.
No commercial UPS or surge protector will guard against lightning. Lightning seeks ground; the only way to guard against it is to break the ground circuit, which can be accomplished only by unplugging (turning a surge protector off does not break the ground circuit).
Recommendation - replace the failed UPS with a new one.