Pro tip: Check your backup drive before the power goes out

So my neighborhood had a quick storm roll through yesterday afternoon, just a 15 minute power flicker. No big deal, right? My UPS beeped, the monitors went dark for a second, and everything came back on. Except my main workstation. The boot drive was fine, but the secondary drive where I keep all my active project files for the last three months was totally corrupted. The system saw it, but it was just raw, unreadable data. I spent the next four hours trying every recovery tool I had, sweating bullets because I had a set of foundation plans due today. I finally got about 80% of the files back using a utility called TestDisk, but I lost a full day of revisions. Has anyone else had a drive just give up the ghost after a simple power blip? I thought my surge protector was enough.

3 comments

3 Comments

mark_green6d ago

Surge protectors don't do anything for a brownout or a flicker. They only stop a big spike. You need a proper battery backup, a UPS, to smooth out the power. Even a cheap one gives you time for a clean shutdown. A power blip can absolutely fry a drive that's actively writing data. It's the most common way they die.

murray.robert6d ago

Ever have a brownout kill a router? That's what pushed me to get a basic UPS. The battery backup kept my network gear online through a few flickers last month, no issues. It's cheap insurance for the small stuff.

nancy_king296d ago

He's right. UPS is the real fix.