Thank you for sharing your unfortunate experience. A power glitch during an auto-update isn't a scenario I would've ever imagined.
There are a couple of things I really love about Debian. One is that you can do a minimalist server install. A smaller package footprint to maintain which may translate into less system problems. For example, you could choose to not install a desktop enviro on the Debian-Mate server and just ssh in from the Ubuntu-Mate pc.
