Back in late May, I decided to set up my own cloud for the purpose of archiving all the photos we’ve taken, the music I’ve made, and all the stories I’ve written, as well as to make daily backups of both our computers that would serve to restore them from bare metal, in case of a drive failure.
The Synology DS220+ – outfitted with dual 8 TB drives in a RAID array, this little server is truly a gem!
It works perfectly, and as a bonus, it supports Plex, which allows me to have my own movie and music server on our living room setup!
There is one “but”, however. We’re now in summer, and our local forecast is calling for a heat wave this coming week, with 4 days of 90 degree plus heat in a row, and we know how often that will trigger power drops.
So, I’ve now added an APC UPS battery backup to my setup, and it proved itself more than worthy earlier this afternoon!
Not only will this model provide me with ample time to perform a normal shutdown of the server, but it also connects to my desktop via USB and will send a signal to shut down the desktop normally before the battery runs too low.
Although the radar looked clear, the sky did not agree, so I trusted my gut and closed the car windows. In less than 10 minutes, we had a downpour going, which is great for the landscape, as our area is in a moderate drought.
I didn’t see or hear any lightning or thunder at all, but our power dropped very briefly (less than a minute duration) and with the backup in place, neither my server nor my desktop skipped a beat. No crash, no corruption, no data loss.
Of course, we still have to reprogram the alarm clock as well as the stove and coffeemaker in the kitchen, but those are minor irritants. Although, it does make me curious about looking at a Generac genny for the house… runs on natural gas, so always has power, kicks in automatically when power drops and keeps everything running.
Hmmm… guess I’d best get to work on that book I’m starting and hope it does well enough to bankroll a chat with the Generac folks!
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