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How resilient is Ubuntu to repeated “power-off” shutdowns?

I've asked before as well but need to confirm again, in my country there are a lot of electricity outages. Will computer being shut down due to power failure affect my system files, or Ubuntu speed in any way?

Please tell the 100% accurate and confirmed thing as it's important here. I don't want to hear that those files or data will be lost which I would be writing like documents etc because it's common sense, un-saved data will usually be lost, I want to hear will it affect system files or any change like that? System speed etc. Like for example I am downloading something from Ubuntu software center and power breakdown occurs, will it have affect on system or future installation of that thing?

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    Independent of the operating system and the file system a power outage always bears the risk of loosing information. All hard disks cache data on the way to the magnetic disks. What's in the cache during a power outage will not be written to the disk and get lost. Most of the time that's nonessential data like the time of last file access. But sometimes it's an entry in the TOC or MBR. Losing data is inevitable during a hard reboot. If you need to be 100% sure of your file integrity you will have to invest in an emergency power unit.
    – con-f-use
    Aug 10, 2012 at 12:43
  • An "emergeny power unit" may be called a UPS(Uninterruptible power supply) in some countries. You can find them on Amazon from 20-60 dollars in the US... Yes, hardware is more prone to damage...
    – nanofarad
    Aug 10, 2012 at 12:50
  • I should've posted my comment here... Aug 10, 2012 at 12:58
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    Yeah got your comment @Emerson hsieh :) And like if i'm doing nothing on the computer - still risk of damaging OS files? Aug 10, 2012 at 13:58
  • Although the chance is low, but the file system might be corrupted (Windows's chance is bigger). Aug 10, 2012 at 15:24

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The effect will arise if outage occurs while Installing them, and more larger will be on Your Hardware system .

While installing , like replacing the older with newer version and outage occurs, then you will have Unpredictable system , because at the Time of Installation no one knows what kind of package is being installed , is it going to change Upstart , or Configuration for Startup Desktop , is it upgrading to Newer kernel , ( device Drivers, in case gets affected) , or Updating xorg.conf , etc it highly depends at the kind of package being stopped from installing during Outage. You should be more worried about Hardware , it has more tendency to damage in such cases.

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  • And yes due to inductive loads on your power grid a sudden loss in power might cause (reverse) voltage spikes. Hardware usually doesn't take kindly to voltage spikes.
    – con-f-use
    Aug 10, 2012 at 12:51

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