This has probably been discussed before, and is somewhat off-topic, but I was wondering…
What do people think about the roles of surge protectors vs battery backups / UPS? What do you plug into a UPS (in the sockets that actually provide battery backup and not just surge protection) and what do you have only on a surge protector?
I have had, for example, my networking gear plugged into battery backups, but I wonder if that is really necessary. If we lose power, I want my Mac Studio on battery backup, so that it can shut down in an orderly manner, and my Apple Studio displays are on battery because there are SSDs plugged into their USB-C ports for TimeMachine and Carbon Copy Cloner, and I don’t want them to lose power until the Mac Studio shuts down and they are unmounted, but the likelihood I will do anything meaningful that requires my network to be running when we are without power is likely to be very small. (I have fiber from GoNetSpeed, so it is possible I would have outside connectivity even when there is no electric power, but my iDevices could just as well use the cellular network during that timeframe…
I would definitely plug your network into battery power. You would’t want your current upload/download/connection to be interrupted by a brief outage. The monitors and Mac are going to be most of the power draw so you won’t save much battery life by removing other things.
An uninterruptible power supply (UPS), offers guaranteed power protection for connected electronics. When power is interrupted, or fluctuates outside safe levels, a UPS will instantly provide clean battery backup power and surge protection for plugged-in, sensitive equipment.
I use a UPS battery backup so that my clients’ computers won’t get damaged when the power company in town does one of its infamous power blips. I usually get two or three calls for dead power supplies every time that happens.
I like to remote into my home desktop so I have it on a UPS to ride out short power outages. I don’t have anything else battery backed as my main aim is to reduce the chance that the desktop shuts down when I’m away from home. Most things just boot up when the power is restored, but not the Mac mini with FileVault enabled.
I have plugged my internet line, access points, switches, home server and my laptop, dock with screen into different UPS.
If the power goes I would like to be able to shut down things neatly.
I have plugged in another few things in the power surge protector. That is, among other things, my printer.
One of the other reasons is as mentioned, if there is just a hiccup in the power supply the network equipment might reboot and then I have to wait until those starts up again.
I have Comcast internet and, although all of my network equipment is plugged into a UPS, whenever there is a power outage I lose internet access. YMMV.
That’ll depend on the presence/quality of backup power in your local Comcast system. Their general trend is toward better emergency power coverage, but it’s uneven. All ISPs deal with this.
You are correct. I was just pointing out that having your network equipment on UPS doesn’t guarantee continued internet access in case of a power outage.
Our fiber internet connection goes down immediately with a power failure. The four desktop computers in the house have UPSes that also cover external drives (on our server) but nothing else. They are configured to power down gracefully before the batteries run out. Everything else is on surge protectors only.