I hope I'm the first to say, based on the product image, that "Ongo just pawn in game of [office] life"
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Any opinions on the quality (or lack thereof) of CyberPower UPS units sold at Costco? I may buy a UPS sometime for my main Raspberry Pi unit. For all its virtues (and seriously, there are many), they are not, historically anyway, very robust to sudden power outages - which occur multiple times a year on average in my area. Apparently the corruption that ensues relates to the interruption of wear-leveling activity on flash-based storage. More and more stuff uses flash memory, and as you note, when in laptops, this wasn't much of a concern because of the battery - enabling a graceful shutdown even if it ran down.
It's my experience that HDD are less affected by sudden power cuts, and Pi can now boot from USB HDD if desired. Most Pi people are going to SSD for speed gains, though. Ironically. It's a bit like turbocharging a Honda Fit.
Sorry, I have no experience with the CyberPower units. In the three months that I've had the APC unit, we've had one brief loss of power - maybe two seconds - that the backup handled. There was also a five second "electrical noise" disturbance which we didn't notice, but the battery came on line to protect the computer.
So to date, it's done exactly what I expected.
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Well played.
I’ve used this brand at home and work. No problems and we’ve been through more hurricanes than I can remember. I replace the batteries on the fancy one at work every six/seven years. Make sure the one you get has the low battery alarm. Most have a three year warranty for the batteries.
My one indulgence through the pandemic was a good chair. I never spent hours on end in a chair before this year. I thought it was ridiculous to say end hundreds of dollars on a chair. Man was I wrong. It’s been only six weeks (back ordered for a month +) but my back and bum are pain free.
HDDs can suffer physical damage from power loses. The motor can seize, the read/write heads can crash and the platter can become damaged. With an SSD less chance of physical damage.
Less chance of physical damage, but data corruption is just as bad in effect. And FWIW, in 26.5 years living where I live with probably at least a half dozen incidents a year (from straight-out power outages to brief flickers off/back on), I've never had a hard drive get damaged, nor any data destroyed. Sure, I might lose any unsaved work, but that's always true.
Anyway thanks for the feedback on CyberPower and tips on what to look for!
I'll second the Cyberpower UPS recommendation. I have used them for many years now in my office and in my A/V closet. I have had some fail after five years but have some going for nearly ten years. I like that they have models with a pure sine wave output.
As for music at my desk, I went with this:
https://www.presonus.com/products/Eris-E5
They are a great improvement over my Audioengine speakers of similar size, which were relegated to the workout room in the basement.
I run the desk speakers wired from a DAC but there are a plethora of streaming DACs available now.
I have two sets of Monsoon Audio Planar Media speakers. These are small flat panels connected through a sub and hard-wired to the computer (1/8" jack). I've had them for 15 years or so and have never found their equal. The company is long-since defunct, but if you listen at a standard computer desk and can find a working pair used, buy them. Best near-field computer speakers ever sold.