Do I really need a power conditioner? (1 Viewer)

[Mr645]

I have had gear saved by power strips. We had a lighting strike in my office, a two story building that I own and we have nearly 20 computers and 2 main servers. Incoming power is on two main feeds, a 150amp and a 250 amp. A lighting strike hit one of 2 main feeds into the building and destroyed an AC unit, & several light fixtures. One of the main servers, a Mac Pro running a RAID 5 8 drive array was on the same line. It, and the 8 drives, monitor, scanner, etc were plugged into a pair of power strips that I think we got at Home Depot for $9.99 for 2. Well guess what, they worked. Both tripped, one was destroyed, one worked after resetting the switch. Nothing plugged into them failed or had any damage, no data corruption, nothing. The electrician that repaired the damage told us that the electrical system was to code, solid grounding, but that lighting is insanely powerful and can get through pretty much anything. A few years later we had a roof leak and it turned out that right next to where the lighting hit, the aluminum flashing and nails under the shingles had been vaporized by the lighting. Crazy stuff

 

[Gary Seven]

This was soething I was interested in as well. Currently, I have my TV hooked up to a UPS and was going to do the same for the rest of my components but I don't think they condition the line, but maybe they do. In any event, what I get from this thread is maybe or maybe not. Seems to rely on several factors, one of them being the sensitivity of the user to audio/visual. I guess it's one of those thing you try and if you see/hear no difference, you return it.