A UPS is basically a surge protector that also offers battery backup. If there is a sudden power surge the UPS, like a surge protector, will sacrifice itself to save your computer from being damaged, and most companies, like APC, will reimburse you if their surge protector fails. However, a UPS takes it one step further, supplying a stead stream of power from the built-in battery should the power go out for any reason. Typically this will give you 30+ minutes to finish what you are doing, save your work, and shut down normally. This prevents the sudden interruption of work, loss of unsaved data, and potential damage caused by a sudden power loss. They can be purchased at just about any local electronics or office supply store and start at around $30.
Hope this helps,
John
P.S. It's usually not wise to include your e-mail address in the open, as spammers will 'harvest' it and overload your inbox. It's more advisable to use the E-mail Member function available in your Cnet profile, which discloses only your Cnet username.
Over one summer at least 25 computers,5 printers and about 30 monitors came in and due to lighting strike the owner was never able to use it again, too bad those owners never spent the extra $40 to buy a ups. Ups's come in many forms (home use, business, and server) apc sells a ups for most home users that goes for $40.
The above paragraph was part of a comment in the discussion about
"How to know when a computer is going to fail"
What is a Ups?
Fran
Message was edited by: admin to remove e-mail address
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