PC Accessories
Highest Value USB Hubs

The most important device connection technologies on today's PC are the USB3 gen1, USB3 gen2 and USB2 technologies. Good implementations of these technologies make device connectivity convenient, reliable, and high performing.

Beyond that, the most important thing to remember is power consumption. Devices may become unreliable when the power is insufficient. Most people never figure this out and instead return perfectly good devices thinking they were defective. In order to ensure you have sufficient power for your USB ports it is highly recommended to make use of good quality powered USB Hubs. (See below.) Otherwise, you are depending on smaller amounts of power coming out of the PC's power supply instead.

Highest-Value 7-port USB3 Hub

This is a Powered (24 watt) 7-Port USB3 Hub, with 3x USB3 gen1, and 4x USB charge ports.

As a general rule each high-tech external drive will draw up to 7 watts. With 24 watts you can reliably access up to 3 high-tech external drives simultaneously.

This unit does not have the gen2 ports for speeds up to 10GB/second. However, most USB3 devices work at their full potential on gen1 ports anyway, for speeds up to 5Gb/second. And they are forward and backward compatible.
Price: $23

Highest-Value 10-port USB3 Hub

This is a Powered (48 watt) 10-Port USB3 Hub, with 3x USB3 gen2, and 7x USB3 gen1. The 3x USB3 gen2 ports are super fast and draw more power, making a very good connection to your high-end USB3 gen2 devices. The 7x USB3 gen1 ports are about half as fast (up to 5Gb/second) and still supply plenty of power for almost all USB3 devices.

As a general rule each high-tech external drive will draw up to 7 watts. With 48 watts you can reliably access up to 6 high-tech external drives simultaneously.

Other devices will likely require far less power, allowing reliable simultaneous use of all 10 ports.

Use the gen2 ports for speeds up to 10Gb/second, and the gen1 ports for speeds up to 5Gb/second. Actual speed depends on the capabilities of the device attached.
Price: $57