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Some small form factor PC's such as

have ac adapters that look like those for laptops.

The obvious concern is that for the non-cautious user perhaps trying to connect or disconnect a mouse, or someone tripping over that wire, may accidentally pull out the AC adapter (desktops usually have a thicker and more secure ac connection).

In a laptop, this is not problematic due to the battery backup, but what would happen in these desktops?

  • Will the hardware be degraded?
  • Would there be severe hard drive damage?
  • Has anyone had experience with this?
  • Would these manufacturers have built in specific safeguards for such events?
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    Exactly what would happen if you pull the power cord on a normal form factor.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Oct 29, 2015 at 17:48
  • Generally speaking it is considered unhealthy, and I'm not an expert (otherwise I wouldn't be asking) but is considered dangerous for the HDD . However since these PC's have a different design and are more prone to be unpowered unexpectedly, this would be a reason to build in those safe guards.
    – user3645994
    Commented Oct 29, 2015 at 17:53
  • Considering in both of your example they use standard parts I don't see the reason any engineering resources would be spent to prevent what you describe. If you pull the power on a x86 in any form factor pretty much the samething will happen if all conditions are equal.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Oct 29, 2015 at 18:29

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  • Has anyone had experience with this?

I actually did just this just the other day with a Lenovo ThinkCenter (tiny chassis). The DC power input connector is very similar to a USB plug (and I wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing).

Lenovo tiny

In my case it corrupted the partition on a 500GB USB data drive I was working with when I accidentally yanked the power. Total data loss on that drive (maybe not total, but I decided it wasn't worth my time to try recovering the data).

  • Would these manufacturers have built in specific safeguards for such events?

There is nothing in these machines to help avoid the problem and so, just like with a standard ATX PC, pulling the power while live is bad news.

About the only way to avoid this problem is via batteries (i.e.: laptop, or UPS), and there's practically no way current consumer battery technology could be jammed into these tiny chassis, yet still be hefty enough to provide enough time to properly maintain or shutdown the machine (and all peripherals) in the event of a power interruption.

  • Will the hardware be degraded?
  • Would there be severe hard drive damage?

Since it is the same as a standard form factor PC in this regard, then this existing SU question still applies:

Can a power failure or forceful shutdown damage hardware?

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