Quote Originally Posted by hecktic View Post
Anyways Im going to start searching for a whole house protector. How many AMPS should it cover to be worthy of a server/data room?
Protectors must earth direct lightning strikes that are typically 20,000 amps. So a minimally sized protector starts at 50,000 amps. That is for residential protection where power is shared by other homes. And when incoming power is limited to 200 amp service.

Protector life expectancy is ballpark measured by its current rating. Increasing a protector to 100,000 amps would exponentially increase the protector life expectancy.

A protector is also selected based upon service. For example home have single phase, split phase, or two phase electric (depending on the viewpoint of the observer). Commercial facilities may have three phase service. A 'whole house' protector is also selected by phase.

A 'whole house' protector is only secondary protection. Primary protection is provided by the utility. A picture of what should be inspected so that the primary protection system is also functional:
http://www.tvtower.com/fpl.html

Quality of single point earth ground mostly determines how a protector works during one surge. A protector's 'amps' mostly determines its life expectancy over many surges.