True Surge Protector. I hope I am listing everyone who responded. Forgive me if I missed someone. Thanks for all the info. JT Moree Shawn Badger Ben Francom Craig White Donn Dazed_75 Erik Bixby I learned a few more things than I set out to. Even though the formula for VA will give watts this is not exactly true. I read that VA is not power consumption .... OK so why would I not need a battery if I were not to consume it's power? I started out looking for surge suppressors and had a few question about what I believe. Two types of suppressors A) routes surges to ground and has a good long life B) surge goes into a capacitor which will eventually fill to capacity leaving this device to be an extension cord only. I have the Isobar model 4 which is 13 years old. Which I can get for about $56.00. I believe this model falls into A above. I looked at the UPS at 1) http://www.mgeups.com/ 2) http://www.apc.com So when I look at this one it seems it will do what I want. http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BE350R&total_watts=200 Why is a UPS so much cheaper than the Isobar? Could it be like inkjet printers? Sell the printer cheap and make money on the ink? IE sell the UPS cheap and make your money off the replacement batteries? Several points you all made: keep monitor on UPS so one can override or control shutdown. If multiple systems are controlled via your network your hub/switch will need to be on the UPS also. Everyone jumped on the UPS bandwagon, never mentioning surge supressors. Thanks to everyone who replied. I can see I have more learning to do! Thanks, Keith - - - - - - - Keith Smith - - - - - - - http://travelingcheese.com/search_engine/increase-search-engine-traffic.html - - - - - - - --------------------------------- Any questions? Get answers on any topic at Yahoo! Answers. Try it now.