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Especially in programs with no background saving LIKE DAZ.
(seriously, it's one of about 2 programs I use that doesn't have it, and the other is from 7 yeeears ago)
True, I've never encountered a perfect solution to any problem. Everything has limitations, and it's up to the user to decide what's best.
Can anybody elaborate on ground loops and related effects of plugging things into different outlets? I've googled now and in the past but I'm still somewhat unclear on the pratical details. For example while everything is eventually plugged into the same outlet, I have my PC and some peripherals plugged into my UPS, but my printer goes through a surge strip because they designed it with no power switch, and my scanner is plugged into yet another surge strip when used due to physical location ease of access, and of course the modem is connected to the phone lines as well, and all these devices are potentially connected to each other. An issue? A non-issue? A potential issue? It depends?
Regarding the OP's hard drive issue, did he purchase the HDs from a reliable source? I've heard unconfirmed rumors of the massive numbers of used drives from data centers being pawned off as new. Might just be nothing more than a fake rumor, but the potential exists and if he buys them all secondhand (intentionally or unintentionally) that might reduce life expectancy if the used drives have been running nonstop.
It's not so much the abrupt loss of power that boogers computers, it's when the power plays bouncy-bouncy games. Down 100%, up 50%, down 100%, up 25%, sizzle for 10 seconds, down 10% up 80%, up 150%, down 75% ... all within about 30 seconds. If our eyes could see transient, spiking currents and magnetic fields the computer would be glowing like the sun.
Hopefully, a decent UPS has switched you to battery power in the first 30 milliseconds of bad power and they are designed to stay on battery power until the wall current stabilizes for a reasonable length of time, avoiding multiple surges to sensitive electronics.
It should be noted that even decent UPS (like the ones I pointed to) only have perhaps half of their power outlets protected by the battery. The rest of the sockets are managed like a surge suppressor (hopefully a better one than you get in a $5 wonder from a bargain bin). Those sockets are intended for less sensitive devices like lamps & speakers or less expensive devices.
Brief explanation of "transient currents": Electrical power is a series of steady well formed waves of energy of uniform height and frequency. Kind of like a ball on an elastic string hit by a paddle uniformly. Then somebody walks by the player and jostles his arm and he misses a bounce then in his panic yanks too much on the elastic string, then accldentally hits the ball out of sequence and the ball is now out of control bouncing all over the place. It takes a while for the player to get the ball back into a steady rhythm. Hopefully the out of control ball hasn't smashed into a window or lamp, or other fragile object.
Similarly, power outages can be a simple miss of the ball and quick recovery, or perhaps the wind is repeatedly shorting a tree limb against a supply wire somewhere, randomly but repeatedly kicking the current out of sync. There's a possibility that the fluctuations of the electric and magnetic currents (especially in transformers, coils and large capacitors) can add & subtract their out of sync values to generate abnormally low or extrordinarily high power fluctuations. In sensitive devices this can be disasterous. These temporary fluctuations are "transients". Electrical and electronics engineers know about them and design their system to absorb normal transients, such as when you first apply power or when you turn off your system. But random fluctuations in the power can generate additive transients that overpower the ability of the circuit to absorb them. It's why you should wait 10 seconds before turning your computer back on after turning it off. You're giving the power stored in the capacitors, transformers & coils time to die away so that you don't generate an overpowering transient.
Unless there is a way to reset the SMART data they will reveal the power on time (the total time the disk has been spinning). But you have to check these data of course, which many probably don't do:
I've seen $2000 Samsung LED TVs plugging into a modern surge protector only to be down in by surge on the antenna but for the fellow with the failing disks it's most likely heat doing the damage. Heat is the only reason I've had harddrives fail. I use big Seagate USB 3.0 USB drives for storing data I don't use much and have no heat problems.
A 2 TB USB 3.0 portable harddrive from Seagate costs about $60 USD on Amazon
Yep, power comes from places other than the power outlet. I've seen computers fried because lightning struck a telephone wire. Back in the old days when computers had phone modems and talked through standard telephone connections. Pretty much blackened the modem card. I've seen computers killed by power coming in from the network cable. And yes, a near lightning strike can induce enough voltage on a television antenna to zap things in the TV. Which is why all this talk about EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse) damage is real. Whether caused by a nuclear bomb (in which case you really have other things to worry about), or by a big solar flare, the possibility of massive amounts of voltage and current being induced on antenna like structures (i.e. antennas, long wires, power cords, metal or wire fences, etc.) is very real and can damage electronics and in some cases even electrify animals or people who happen to be touching the structure as the pulse occurs. Any unshielded device with lengths of conductive material inside it (like circuits) can receive the power from an EMP. Whether it's enough to disable the device is the luck of the draw. The only way to be sure is to hide your TV or radio in a metal box when you know an EMP is coming. But they don't always advertise themselves and it's pain to watch your TV inside the box.
The idea of wrapping your head in tinfoil is silly, but wrapping your radio in tinfoil (aka: aluminum, or aluminium foil) is a good idea if you want to protect your radio so that you can receive the emergency radio broadcasts after the emergency (that is, if the transmitter itself wasn't fried.)