What is the difference between a surge protector and an Uninterruptable Power Supply?
A surge protector protects your computer from power surges or spikes. A UPS provides protection against power surges or spikes, and in addition contains a battery that will supply power to your computer for a short period after electrical service to your home is cut off, allowing you to save any open work and shut down your computer safely. Don’t purchase a $2,000 system and connect to a $9.99 surge strip. Make certain that the surge strip has an status indicator light and, since surges through the phone line are the leading cause of hardware damage, ensure that it has in and out jacks for RJ-11 (phone) connections. Run the phone line to the “in” jack and another stretch of phone cord from the “out” jack to your dial-up or ADSL modem. Before you purchase a UPS, determine the total load of all machines that you propose to connect to it. Don’t connect a laser printer to your UPS. A laser printer draws a tremendous amount of power and will most certainly overload your UPS and cause the UP
