4 Ways to Add More USB Ports to Your Computer

 

You can add USB ports to a desktop or laptop with a simple USB hub. Desktop owners have the additional option of expanding USB functionality with PCI-E cards and front panel adapters

If you’re tired of swapping USB cables and searching for ports, it’s time to add more USB ports to your computer. Here’s how you can easily add more ports to both desktop computers and laptops.

Table of Contents

Why Add More USB Ports to Your Computer?
How to Add More USB Ports to Your Computer
Add a USB Hub: Easy Expansion for Everyone
Use a Laptop Dock: Perfect for Work from Home Setups
Get a USB Expansion Card for Your Desktop PC
Install a USB Front Panel for Your Desktop PC

Why Add More USB Ports to Your Computer?

Perhaps you’re a digital nomad that lives your life from a razor-thin ultrabook and everything stored in the cloud. In that case, there’s a good chance this isn’t the article for you because a life unencumbered by cables and peripherals doesn’t demand a lot of USB ports.

But for the rest of us, there are never enough USB ports to go around. Slap a keyboard, mouse, webcam, external disk drive, tether cable for your uninterruptible power supply, that really nice USB mic you bought so you don’t sound like you’re remote working from a bottom of a lake, and maybe a sync cable for your Kindle or other device, and suddenly you’ve met or exceeded the number of available ports on your PC.

And if you have a laptop? Well, forget it. You better pick and choose what you want to use at that moment because most laptops come with a couple of USB ports, at best, these days.

Fortunately, it’s really easy to add ports to desktop PCs and laptops. Depending on your needs, it can be as simple as plugging something in or slightly more complex, like opening up your PC case to add expansion cards and accessories. Let’s look at the options now.

How to Add More USB Ports to Your Computer

There are four ways to add USB ports to your desktop or laptop computer. We’ve organized them here in order of complexity, with the fastest and easiest method at the top. Here’s a quick summary to help you jump to the right spot.

• Basic USB Hub: Works whether you have a desktop or laptop computer. Limits you to the data transfer rate of the single port the hub is connected to. About as plug-and-play as it gets.
• Laptop Dock/USB-C Hub: Optimized for laptops to take advantage of the USB-C ports’ data and power capacity. Adds additional USB ports and support for Ethernet, displays, and other peripherals.
• USB Expansion Cards: You need an available PCI-E slot and a willingness to crack open your computer case. But when you’re done, it’s like your motherboard magically has extra USB ports.
• USB Front Panel: You need an empty 3.5″ or 5.25″ bay in the front of your computer and an appropriate motherboard connection point or expansion card. Allows you to add front panel USB ports to a computer without them.

We’d encourage you to read through the entire list below to see the pros and cons of each method before opting for just a basic USB hub. Adding a USB expansion card to your desktop is a little more hassle, but you may end up much happier with the solution over time.

Add a USB Hub: Easy Expansion for Everyone

The absolute simplest way to add more USB ports to your computer, regardless of whether it’s a desktop PC or a laptop, is to use a USB hub. Adding a USB hub is analogous to adding a power strip to an outlet.

If your issue is that you’re a few USB ports short and you have a lot of undemanding USB peripherals, a simple hub can absolutely get the job done. What do we mean by undemanding? USB peripherals like mice, keyboards, a UPS tether, or small items like the Stream Deck micro display and button interface, hardly consume any power and use minimal data.

You can plug in a small USB hub to one of your existing ports and offload 3-4 low-demand peripherals without a problem. Something like this highly-rated Anker 4-port USB 3.0 hub will fit the needs of most people just looking for a few extra ports.

The biggest shortcoming of the Anker model and similar compact data-only USB 3.0 hubs is the limited power. The power output of a single USB 3.0 port is shared across all the ports. While that offers more than enough power for basic peripherals, you won’t want to power external hard drives off of it, and any attached device will charge very slowly compared to using a dedicated charger.