As many of you may have noticed and been affected by, there was a large power outage in East Abbotsford last Friday May 06 2022.
Our office was in the outage zone, as well as a few of our houses and favourite local businesses. This event was a good reminder to us to teach you about what to do with your tech in an unexpected outage like this in order to ensure no damage is done to your equipment, no data is lost, and your important equipment stays running long enough to complete important tasks.
To prepare for events such as outages, all critical equipment should be on uninterruptible power supplies, also known as a "UPS". A UPS should have enough battery life to allow you enough time to safely power down this equipment without damage or data loss.
How To Protect Your Equipment in an outage
Dangerous times for your equipment, even more-so that the original shutdown, are the moment the power comes back, and the small amounts of power during the outage.
When the power cuts out unexpectedly, whatever is open and unsaved on your machine can be corrupted and lost. A UPS is designed to give you buffer time to close everything correctly. What you may not know is that frequent power outages without a UPS increase the likelihood of data corruption and shorten the life of your electronics. Power flickering as well as the large surge when the power comes back on can do even more damage than the original outage.
Another good reason for a UPS is to protect against the damage caused by brownouts. Brownouts are those partial outages where the lights dim but don't go off. These may damage your equipment even more than a surge as they supply incorrect voltages and currents to your equipment which it may not be able to handle.
Finally, when the power comes back on, it is an unusual state for the power grid - all devices, buildings, lights, in a very large area all draw power at exactly the same time and the impact on your equipment can be severe. This can reduce your computer equipment’s life significantly, or damage it, or completely ruin it, signalled by a nasty burning smell. Many users have a surge bar that offers some protection, but this is rarely as good as the protection provided by a UPS, and most people don't know that surge protectors should be replaced after a few years or after a major surge event, as a malfunction is a common cause of fire.
Recommendations from wildfrog systems
In order to prevent damage and prolong the life of your computer investments, we highly recommend battery backups, and shutting down your equipment safely before those power supplies run out. Once the power is back on, wait a little longer to make sure it is stable before you turn your equipment on, and do it one device at a time. This will prevent damage and downtime, extend your tech’s life, and save you stress as well as money.