Best buys · The trader's desk

The best UPS for a trading desk worth buying

Our pick is the APC Back-UPS 600VA. Below: why, what actually matters when buying one, what to get for less, the step up, and whether today's price is a good one.

The backup power

APC Back-UPS 600VA

Enough battery to close a position and shut down cleanly when the power goes. Not glamorous; the cheapest insurance on the desk.

Buy it for
Anyone who trades from home, anywhere the power flickers.
Skip it if
You run a multi-GPU workstation. Size up to a bigger unit.

What actually matters when buying a UPS for a trading desk

  1. Capacity in watts, not just VA. Add up what the desk actually draws and leave headroom.
  2. Runtime at your load. A few minutes is enough to close a position and shut down; it is not meant to trade through an outage.
  3. Pure sine wave output if your computer has an active-PFC power supply, which most modern ones do.
  4. Which outlets are battery-backed and which are surge-only. Put the router on battery too.

Either side of the pick