Nothing like a good old fashioned power failure to shake the
foundation of all my digital sand castles.
Fortunately my APC UPS (Back-UPS NS 1500M2) worked perfectly. Until
it couldn't. It has seen its share of brown-outs and momentary
interruptions, handling each with aplomb. And then _all_ the lights
went off, every where, and did not come back on.
After the inevitable we.should.have.been.better.prepared scurrying
around to locate candles I got back around to the beeping UPS.
It supports my main $DRIVER (PC) and its monitors, $NFS (PC,
Nextcloud, Jellyfin), $NMS (Pi3b+), Router/Wifi, and the fiber modem.
[Aside: As I type the UPS just 'covered' another brown-out event.]
When the power failure, the result of a HUGE thunderstorm, lasted
more than the few minutes I was willing to be optimistic I started a
mental shutdown list. APC told me I had about 58 runtime minutes at a
10% load. I set a timer for 30 minutes and relaxed, ever hopeful
that the Utility company would be successful any second now and no
further action on my part would be required. NOT!
After 30 minutes the APC calculated that it had over 25 minutes
runtime. I decided to shutdown $NSF. While a valuable resource in
normal times it was deemed non-essential in the face of a prolonged
outage. Upon completion of the shutdow the APC then reported just
over 50 minutes of runtime. I set another 30 minute timer and I
waited.
When I shutdown my main $DRIVER I regain another almost 20 minutes
runtime. The duration was impressive but the inevitable end was
looming. SShing into the Raspberry Pi from my cell phone I was able
to safe shut it down with just 2 minutes runtime remaining. At one
minute I toggled the router off.
The batteries in the APC UPS could no longer sustain itself. It
turned itself off, completely.
Then there was silence and darkness. A sort of 'digital vacuum'.
