Areca 1231ML BBU Really necessary?

[Adam Gold]

I haven't done any editing for a couple of years so my editing rig has lain fallow and not even powered on for that long. Last night I powered it up just as a test and the system hung on "Waiting for RAID Controller F/W to become ready."

A quick Google search on that message pointed to the Battery Backup Unit, sometimes as the result of a corrupted cache due to an abrupt shutdown during a power failure, sometimes just because of a dead battery. Solutions ranged from the elaborate (swapping out parts to other servers) to the simple (just unplug it).

So we did the latter and bingo! Perfect startup and everything spun up fine. (Note that you must not only remove the BBU from the MB but also completely remove the BBU cable from the RAID Controller Card.)

So my question is: If I have several external large Battery Backup/UPSes protecting the entire system, and the sytem isn't on when I'm not there, is the BBU really necessary? I suppose there are rare times when I might leave the rig unattended during an extended rendering operation, but otherwise I'd be there to safely shut everything down during a power loss event.

The Areca controls two RAID3 arrays for all my data so it is pretty important. I'll replace the BBU if it's really helpful but not if it's overkill. I know these days it's only a hundred bucks or so at NewEgg so this question is mostly academic, so I guess I'll probably get one, but not if it's a waste of money. The Newegg reviews all say you can't enable write-back caching without it, so how important is this for actual editing?

Thoughts, Harm and others? I know this isn't strictly Adobe-related but Harm and all the other RAID gurus seem to be the most active here, and it's what I use (still proudly on CS5 and will never bow to a subscription model).