A study in 2014 found that small businesses with outdated computers experience less productivity and more downtime than ones with newer PCs.
It turns out, that the slower response times of computers that are at least four years old or more eat up nearly 40 business hours a year.
Whether you’re a freelancer working from home or a business owner looking to upgrade your employees, you may be in need of some new externals.
If you’ve been looking for must-have computer accessories for your workspace, check out these ones we’ve chosen!
#1. A Mechanical Keyboard
These days, a lot of people associate mechanical keyboards with video gamers, but trust us, these have benefits for everyone.
A good mechanical keyboard feels great, looks great, and can increase your typing accuracy and productivity significantly.
Because mechanical keyboards have switches with a more tactile feel, it makes it less likely for you to experience typos. So, if your work involves a lot of writing, look into one of these.
There are a lot of mechanical keyboards out there to choose from and it may seem overwhelming.
A lot of them are somewhat aimed at gamers too, with red-green-blue (RGB) lighting and odd font choices.
If you’re picking up some for work purposes, we would recommend a keyboard from the Ducky company.
Their keyboards are well manufactured, professional looking, and come in at an agreeable price point.
Check out the Ducky One keyboard. It’s a full-sized keyboard that includes a numpad if you need to make calculations or do data entry for your work. Otherwise, check out a Ducky tenkeyless keyboard as it doesn’t include a numpad and is a little more compact and portable.
There are lots of options out there, so do your research.
#2. A Flash Drive
This is like the 101 basics of computer accessories.
Who doesn’t have a flash drive these days?
Well, actually, flash drives (or USB drives) have become so commonplace over the years that they’re almost like pens or pencils. People lose them all the time.
Make sure you have at least one lying around. While so much work is saved and shared through the cloud, sometimes it’s easiest to stick in a USB drive and transfer files over to a new computer or a coworker’s computer.
Here’s a 64gb flash drive using 3.0 USB. That’s important; as long as your PC or laptop has a 3.0 USB port, buy 3.0 rather than 2.0.
#3. An External Hard Drive
A flash drive is good for simple, on-the-go transfers and data storage.
An external hard drive is better for larger storage and sometimes even entire backups of PCs.
Personal computers have problems all the time. It’s good to be safe and keep your PC free and clean of all issues, but some are unavoidable.
If your PC crashes, you lose everything, which is why it’s recommended to make backups of your computer often.
A 1TB Western Digital hard drive may not be the fastest hard drive in the world, but it’s plenty of space at an affordable cost to get the job done.
#4. A Solid State Drive
These are becoming more and more common than they used to be.
If you’ve bought a prebuilt laptop or personal computer, chances are high that it came with a solid state drive anyway.
However, if it didn’t, and you don’t want to buy a brand new computer, you could consider upgrading to a solid state drive (SSD).
There are a few different types of SSDs, though, so pay attention.
Size-wise there are:
- M.2 solid state drives
- 2.5-inch solid state drives
- mSATA solid state drives
They also have a couple of different connection types, including SATA or PCIe.
The drives encased in 2.5-inch enclosures look like rectangles and are probably the most identifiable. mSATA and M.2 SSDs have exposed circuit boards.
The difference here is that with the M.2 SSDs you can have PCIe connection, which is much faster than SATA, but also more expensive.
You can’t really go wrong with any type of solid state drive, but remember that a lot of people opt for smaller storage to save money. That way, you only have to run your operating system through the SSD.
This is most important as your computer will be much quicker and more responsive, increasing productivity.
Here’s a Western Digital SSD with 256gb storage and a PCIe connection.
#5. A Multi USB Port
Sometimes, you need to connect or charge many devices at the same time through a USB connection.
Some computers, especially laptops simply don’t have enough ports.
Learn more here about multi-USB ports and hubs.
#6. A Computer Locking Kit
People lose electronics all the time or have them stolen.
Luckily, there are locking kits for computers and laptops, such as this one from Kensington that can keep your expensive rig on lockdown.
Some use a combo to unlock, but this one uses a key so that you don’t have to keep a combination memorized.
#7. A Wireless Mouse
Between keyboards, mice, external monitors, external hard drives, etc., a computer can get quite cluttered.
If you hate having a mess of cords lying around that looks like a yarn ball, check out this Logitech wireless mouse.
There are lots of cheap options out there, but this Logitech version is good quality at a good price.
#8. An External Monitor
An external monitor will really benefit you and your productivity.
This ASUS monitor is an excellent value for both price and quality.
An external monitor can benefit:
- Laptop users who need a larger screen for more demanding work
- PC users who need a secondary monitor
There are lots of options out there today, including UHD, 2k resolution, 4k resolution, etc., but as long as you at least stick to 1080p (or HD), you’re good.
More Must-Have Computer Accessories
If you’re looking to increase your business productivity, then there are a number of must-have computer accessories out there in the wild.
Hopefully, this list gave you an idea of some that you might benefit from.
If you’re looking for more must-have gadgets, check out our products blog section!
