Surge Protector or UPS?

[RyC]

Hi everyone,

Hope this is the right forum. After spending many hours and dollars on getting my HTPC setup working ("working" ), I was wondering if I should put some kind of power protection on my equipment. I got a storage server with 12 hard drives, an HTPC, and AVR. Do you guys use a UPS and/or a surge protector? From what I can tell, UPSs don't have much surge protection (at least the cheaper ones), but they do protect against high/low voltage. So is it worth getting a UPS for the line voltage regulation/graceful shutdown in a power failure? Or should I be fine with just a good surge protector? Other than getting the chance to shut down, I'm not going to be needing to use any equipment during a power outage. I'm more worried about lightning strikes, really. Thanks so much for your advice!

[crawfish]

Nothing will protect you from a direct lightning strike; that's why APC and the rest provide insurance for it, and so should your homeowner's policy. You should use a UPS to deal with surges, avoid disk corruption due to power interruptions, and provide graceful shutdown during extended outages. My APC XS1500 will wake my PC from sleep to hibernate it during a prolonged outage, which is very very cool, as it means I don't need to use hybrid sleep and can thus avoid tens of gigabytes of unnecessary writes to my SSD per day.

[RyC]

I do realize that if lightning strikes, there's a good chance everything's toast. Graceful shutdown is a big benefit. But should I be concerned with voltage fluctuations and get a UPS to deal with that? Thanks a lot!

[tombardo]

Not sure if you use cable or not, but you might consider using a surge protector for that as well (most surge protectors have a coax protector). I had a nearby lightning strike which fried my cable modem and the surge spread along the wired network. It fried the network port on my HTPC, XBOX, and several network switches and routers.

[crawfish]

FWIW, I've always heard that coax surge protection doesn't offer much protection, can hurt the signal, and it's more important to ensure the cable is grounded where it enters the house. Lots of strong opinions here, and I don't know what to believe. In any event, while I've always used UPSes, I've never used cable surge suppression. The only power-related incident I've ever had was an unprotected telephone line killing a standalone phone modem and serial card in a PC, and that was over 20 years ago, when I lived in an apartment. The only other such incident I know of personally also involved an unprotected telephone line taking out a modem. Besides the PC and related equipment, I also use a UPS in the other room where we just have a TV and cable company DVR. Other expensive equipment gets surge suppression only, including the refrigerator.

[barnabas1969]

If you can afford a good UPS, it's much better than a surge suppressor.

On the subject of coax surge suppressors: A standard coax surge suppressor will degrade the signal too much for digital cable service and/or cable Internet service.

However, a gas tube surge suppressor on the coax line will work perfectly, and provides very good protection. If you live in the lightning capital of the USA like I do... it's a very good idea. I replaced the grounding block outside my house with a gas tube surge suppressor. It connects to the coax and the ground wire just like the original ground block.

[RyC]

Thanks for the helpful advice. Lightning is rare enough that I don't think I need coax protection. Looks like I'll be getting a UPS. Thanks again!

[AnthonyB]

Do FiOS customers need coax surge protection?

[barnabas1969]

From what I understand, FIOS delivers their content over fiber. Then, somewhere on the customer's premises, there is a box that converts it from fiber to coax.

Is that correct?

[Scallica]

From what I understand, FIOS delivers their content over fiber. Then, somewhere on the customer's premises, there is a box that converts it from fiber to coax. Is that correct?

Correct, it's called an ONT (Optical Network Terminal) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_Ne ... rminal#ONT

[Venom51]

Thanks for the helpful advice. Lightning is rare enough that I don't think I need coax protection. Looks like I'll be getting a UPS. Thanks again!

I used to think that until 2 Motorola SB6120's and 2 Cisco 2811 Ethernet ports later.

[barnabas1969]

From what I understand, FIOS delivers their content over fiber. Then, somewhere on the customer's premises, there is a box that converts it from fiber to coax. Is that correct?

Correct, it's called an ONT (Optical Network Terminal) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_Ne ... rminal#ONT

Well then, as long as:
A) none of your coax cables are buried underground (or strung through the air to an adjacent building)
B) The coax is properly grounded
and...
C) The power supply to the ONT is on a surge suppressor

You're probably pretty well insulated on the coax line. But... a gas tube surge suppressor won't hurt.

[barnabas1969]

Thanks for the helpful advice. Lightning is rare enough that I don't think I need coax protection. Looks like I'll be getting a UPS. Thanks again!

I used to think that until 2 Motorola SB6120's and 2 Cisco 2811 Ethernet ports later.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I happen to live in Florida, where we are the lightning capital of the USA. I have several friends who did not follow my advice to use surge suppressors (both on the coax line into the house, as well as the Ethernet cable between the modem and router) who have had their modems and routers fried... some more than once.

[barnabas1969]

For anyone who is interested, here's what I'm using:

I have one of these gas-tube type coax surge suppressors at the point where my cable comes from the utility pole to the house, before the first splitter. I have another one of them at the point where the coax comes into my house from my outdoor antenna. Both are grounded with 8-gauge solid copper wire to the building ground of my house (which is a copper rod driven into the earth, as is standard on all houses). Just as a note, my antenna mast is also grounded, with a separate 8-gauge solid copper wire, to the same grounding rod. You can use these suppressors to replace the existing ground block that you should already have at the point where the coax enters the house, before the first splitter. These surge suppressors only attenuate the signal a tiny bit, so they won't cause any signal problems. Some power strip type surge suppressors have a coax surge suppressor built-in, but I've never seen one with a gas tube type suppressor in it. The non-gas-tube type suppressors will attenuate your signal too much and will cause problems with your tuners, cable boxes, modems, etc.

I also have one of these Ethernet surge suppressors connected in-line between my cable modem and my router for additional protection. The ground lead connects to the screw on the faceplate of the electrical wall outlet. After you ground it, be certain to test the ground with a multimeter to be certain that the ground lead made good contact with the faceplate screw, and that the metal frame of the electrical receptacle is properly grounded. Some power strips and UPS's have an Ethernet surge suppressor built-in, and it's fine to use those instead.

The router, modem, and switch are also on a UPS, which provides surge protection on the power supply.