Surge protection or not?

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

There seems to be conflicting advice on whether or not to use surge protectors to power external drives.  Some say surge protectors can reduce voltage to the drive if too many devices are plugged into the power strip.  Other say definitely plug it into a surge protector or battery backup.
Another idea mentioned  is to always plug it directly into a wall socket.

I have two external drives that were plugged into the Surge side of a battery backup, and they both recently failed.  Our office has frequent power outages.  Now I’m thinking they should have been been plugged into the Battery side of the battery UPS - or even have their own dedicated UPS.

I would love to know what the official Western Digital advice is on this topic.

Thanks - Sam

2

Hello,

Western Digital recommends to connect the drive directly to the wall outlet.

3

But what if I KNOW there will be power outages a few times a month?  Wouldn’t it be better to connect  to a battery backup UPS?

Sam

4

Why would WD recomend that. ALL my gear is behind a UPS on the battery backup ports. Nothing worst than a power hit to a working disk drive.

Jim