Comment Re:UPS (Score 1) 236
For a $500 computer, it would be a $40 UPS. That said what is your data worth? What is your time (involved in setting up the PC and installing apps)?
Also, a UPS isn't just about protecting against the damaging severe spikes and surges or outages - I used to live in an apartment and had all sorts of mysterious reboots and lockups until I attached through a cheap UPS. I took the same experience to heart with my job at the time, as an embedded systems engineer - we had a troublesome installation that had the panel rebooting constantly in the factory - all the while, the plant electrician insisted the power line to the panel was a conditioned line that was a rock solid waveform, but only after attaching the UPS to one of our panels, and having it perform perfectly for 3 days, was he convinced that all his fancy diagnostic tools might have been lying to him. After putting UPSes on all of our panels, all the problems disappeared. My next visit to that plant, and ALL of the control panels they had in the plant had UPSes inline.