MAC or PC?

[D700 Doug]

I am running a 24 inch imac and a 15 inch ibook love both of them and would never ever ever consider a PC 

many of my computer literate mates have ragged me over the years for using macs 

Most of them now use macs 

[Robert M Estall]

Nobody can reliably predict how long a Hard Drive will last though five years might be a reasonable average. Heat is one big factor, so make sure the air can move freely and position well away from direct sunlight. A bigger foe is power fluctuations and failures. Monday's storm caused the worst scenario: power flicking on and off before total failure. That's what did for my ancient G4 a couple of years ago, the boot drive was about eight years old with two extra internals quite a bit younger. We did manage to recover almost all the contents from the old boot drive and it was simpler to download all the image archive from a WD external firewire 800 drive to the new iMac

 

My current APC back-up power supply surely earned it's £75 price tag on Monday morning. It's about the size and weight of three house bricks. Gives 4 battery outlets and a further 4 surge protected . Mine has standard UK three pin plugs but they come in European and N.American versions. APC is made in the States, though there are other suppliers.

 

It also takes an occasional dislike to the power coming from the mains and tells me I'm running on battery once in a while. It lets me run the 27 inch iMac for about 20 minutes, but I just wind up what I'm doing calmly and shut down to be safe. If it's a storm, chances are the dogs are setting up a howl and need attention anyway.

[Paulstw]

UPC's have saved many a server of mine. I have 6 of them all with about 4 servers hanging off them. I get about 30 seconds to shut them down via the UPC script when the power goes. Haven't thought of one for home use right enough.