Hi all, since ya’ll are self hosters, I’m sure you all deal with all sorts of different pieces of hardware, accessories, peripherals, and what not; just wondering if you could please share your favorite, solid, “go to” brands for overall things you need for your setup such as cables (all types), adapters, dongles, power accessories, hubs & docks, flash drives, you name it! I’m sure it varies depending on exactly what type of equipment you’re looking for but just looking for overall good brands to stick with for such things. I obviously know the main ones like Anker, Cable Matters, Ugreen, maybe Belkin, Idk. Would love to hear your recommendations! Thank you
Remember power!
First and foremost, well-grounded power is essential. I haven’t done the whole house thing yet, but I am thinking about it and curious to know of other’s stories.
For surge protectors, I like GE wall taps for form factor and Furman racks when there is space & need.
For an uninterruptible power supply, I like APC. While they aren’t made in the USA like they used to (RIP), they have been reliable for me.
Network (ISP Modem, WIFI, Switch) and tower CPU are all driven by UPS power. APC UPS, at least, is always drawing off the battery, so the upstream electronics are protected…a massive surge is far more likely to take out the battery. For laptops, surge protection is enough.
I have not yet surge-protected the ISP lower power input… this is a real risk! I found a cheap one off Amazon, but I am worried it will degrade the network --> whole house may be better.
Note - I have had a lightning strike get sent down the cable line, enter the home, blow out the cable modem, traverse into the network switch, blow out the switch, and nuke every active ethernet port (NAS, Apple TV, etc.), as well as jump the wire into low power security, physically blowing a hard-wired security panel off the wall and damaging a few hard-wired security points. Pretty crazy!
Holy crap thats crazy! Are simple things like surge protectors pretty much equal? Is there a point in researching brands for such a presumably simple thing?
Depends, it’s all a gamble. Think of it like this … how much do you spend on your kit? A top end GPU is $1500 USD. A decent surge protector might cost $15. However suppose you cheap out and get one for $9.99…then a surge blows thru it and smokes your mobo&gpu. how much did that $5 in savings cost you?
there is quite a bit that goes into it. And yet it’s not magic. Also, protection does wear out as load & surge is applied. So it’s not really worth it to pay top end, over and over, at least imo.