Desktop Components

The attraction of using desktop components as much as possible (as opposed to laptop components) lies in their lower cost, larger selection, higher speed and/or capacity, and earlier availability of new features. For example, for the hard disk drive (HDD) a large capacity at low cost is highly desired, and high speed helps with system and application startup and memory paging.

For the optical disk drive (usually a DVD burner), which is the largest single piece of equipment in a small PC but tends to be used relatively little and tends to be relatively inexpensive, using a slim-line version is the most tempting, and the most effective in reducing overall size. An exception to the low usage and cost is a Home Theater PC which may want to be equipped with the latest technology, meaning HD DVD or BD right now. Even LightScribe disk labeling is hard to get in a slim drive. Aside from cost, this is a size vs. features trade-off: A desktop optical drive is possible for small desktop PCs with 8-10 liters of volume but not for smaller ones.

Small desktop PCs should be able to use desktop CPUs and desktop memory, unlike mini PCs.