That UPS you bought for your home server may not be as useful as you think
&gt;  I live in a place where blackouts are very infrequent (perhaps a couple per year), but occasionally the mains drops out for only a second or two. I suspect these very short dropouts occur when substation switchgear operates, but have no way of being sure. Anyway, with a server running 24&#x2F;7 I obviously wanted protection against any loss of the mains supply.<p>&gt; So I thought I had covered all bases, and, indeed, the UPS proved useful on several occasions. I would quite often be on a work trip and receive an e-mail from the server informing me that mains power to the UPS had been lost, then another e-mail soon after informing me that mains power to the UPS had returned. Only once did the power cut last longer than the battery capacity, and the server was shutdown automatically.<p>It sounds like the UPS is doing exactly what he wants it to do. This is exactly why I bought a UPS. I would have power transients sometimes and rebooting my entire network (with NAS and servers) was annoying, and I didn&#x27;t want it to go out when I was gone.<p>His main complaint is he bought a standby UPS where the battery failed, it turned off the UPS (which is understandably frustrating), and now replaces the battery every three years. Looking at the white paper referenced, it even says to go for Line Interactive for servers. I&#x27;m also curious how the person knew that power wasn&#x27;t cut when he was away?<p>So other than buying the wrong type of UPS (which at face value looks to be a valid complain based on research)....why isn&#x27;t a UPS as useful as they&#x27;d think?