5 amazing Peripherals

You're a veteran tech geek. You build all your own systems. Your friends and family always look to you for advice when buying PC gear or gadgets. Yet there's still stuff you don't own, and don't realize you need. Now, it's true that many of you may have a couple of the items on this list. But there's likely gear here you don't have, and didn't realize you could use.

USB Hard Drive Dock

If you don't have one of these, you should get one. Better yet, get one of the newer, USB 3.0 dual clock versions. They make cloning hard drives vastly easier than opening up a case, finding a spare SATA cable and trying to make connections that don't disturb something else inside your PC.

You just slide your drive in so that the power and SATA connectors mate to the device and plug it in. You'll need to attach a small power brick, since desktop hard drives use more power than USB can deliver. Versions connecting via eSATA also exist, but I've found them to be more finicky than the USB versions.

Powered (not unpowered) USB Hub

The critical word here is "powered." A powered USB hub is more versatile than an unpowered hub, even if it does require attaching a small power brick to an outlet. If you have a powered USB hub, you can attach various USB-powered devices, and each will get its own trickle current. That's useful if you need to charge multiple phones and tablets, attach more than one USB powered hard drive and other similar devices. (Watch out, though—some powered hubs may only power a subset of the hubs.)

Monitor Calibration Puck

If you're into photography or video, you probably have one of these. Even if you're a casual photographer, you probably watch a fair amount of video on your PC. Unless you're a pixel-peeping pro, you don't need a high end version that's full of bells and whistles. A $70 Spyder Express Pro gets the job done, and is pretty simple to use.

Small LED Flashlight / Lantern

Most modern enthusiast PC cases sport interiors that are black-on-black. Some motherboards ship with black cables. Some internal peripherals are black. That makes working inside a PC an interesting exercise in squinting.

Modern, tiny LED flashlights are a godsend. The small one is a Fenix LD15, which takes a single AA battery and can pump out 105 lumens. The alien looking green gizmo is a Blackfire Clamplight, which can stand on its own (as shown here) or clamp to the side of a case, directing its light inward. It can also emit up to 100 lumens of exceptionally bright light. I find myself using the Fenix to hunt for small screws or other tiny items I drop on the floor or inside a case. The clamp light is useful in a variety of situations.

Smart (Green) Power Strip or UPS

My production system is attached to an APC750 ES Power-Saving smart uninterruptible power supply. The UPS can detect when I power down my PC, and automagically shut off peripherals attached to certain power plugs. Others can be "hot" all the time. So when I shut down my systems, my monitors and speakers also power down, while my powered USB hub remains on. The PC power connection is still "hot," so if you merely put the PC to sleep instead of powering down, your peripherals still turn off while the PC itself can still draw enough current to maintain a sleep state.

If you don't need a UPS, you can get simpler surge protectors that do the same thing, like the SmartStrip shown here. Like the APC UPS, certain plugs completely power down when you shut down or put your PC to sleep.