Is any number of USB ports ever really enough? A keyboard and a mouse can take up two. You may need one for your printer. Or your gaming headset. Or your iPod or your iPhoneor your iPod and your iPhone. Maybe you even have a beverage chiller. It adds up quickly. A lot depends on your motherboard and case, of course, but even high-end, personally designed systems can fall short: One of ExtremeTech’s primary testing PCs has 14 active USB ports, and came perilously close to running out when we pushed it to the limit while testing our ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 Edition video card. External hubs work, but can be finicky and inconvenient.

So we were amused and impressed when we discovered the NZXT IU01 Internal USB Expansion device ($23.99 list). Its name may be cumbersome, but the idea is a winner: This is a small board that you connect to one of the USB headers on your motherboard, and get not only three extra headers for your trouble but also two full USB ports. Depending on your system’s internal configuration, there are a few potential issues you may run into when setting up the device, but the extra flexibility the IU01 provides may well be worth it for some users.