The 7 Best USB Host controllers (2023 reviews)

We consider a usb host controller to be a worthy investment in the long run. We are here to help you choose the right one for your purposes from all the best available products in market today.

Our review process: Show/Hide

Our Top Picks:

Best Overall: Buy: IO Crest USB Host Controller READ REVIEW

Best With Oculus Rift: Buy: Startech PCIE Card READ REVIEW

Best For controlling multiple PC fans: Buy: Kingwin USB Host Controller READ REVIEW

Best With Microsoft modern speaker: Buy: Febsmart USB Host Controller READ REVIEW

Best With Ubuntu System: Buy: Startech USB Host Controller READ REVIEW

Best For Home Use: Buy: LSI USB Host Controller READ REVIEW

Best With older Hardware: Buy: Ableconn USB Host Controller READ REVIEW

Best Overall: IO Crest USB Host Controller

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The look and feel of this controllers are consistent with the high quality we're used to from the rest of Io Crest's lineup. The ASMedia 1064 controller is smaller, with status lights. It is dedicated to supplying the highest quality products. This card (marvell 88SE9230 chipset) supports RAID 0 and RAID. The upper limit of the size of hard drive this card can access is theoretically 9.4 billion terabytes per port. It can fit a 1x card slot.

The PCI-e 2.0 card is backward compatible with a PCI-e 1.0 or 1.1 slot, butthe maximum speed drops from 4.0 Gbps to 2.0 Gbps with PCI-e 1.0 or 1. They are rock solid during functional use and pretty much plug-and-play in modern Windows environments.

• Speed capped at 225 mbps across all disks connected directly to cpu's pcie lans
• Great budget cards, just don't push them too hard without proper cooling
• Nice way to add sata ports

Best With Oculus Rift: Startech PCIE Card

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Not everyone likes to purchase controller for their daily usage, but the startech pcie card would be an anomoly. This Pcie usb adapter card lets you experience speeds up to 70 faster than traditional usb 30 when used with a uasp. It offers four independent channels and is capable of 5gbps per port. It also handles multiple hubs and high power devices perfectly. The main benefit of the this card is that it uses a separate USB hub for each port, resulting in much better bandwidth and response times across devices. The PEXUSB3S44V is compatible with any standard PCI Express slot that is size x4 or larger.

This Pcie usb 30 card includes an optional sata or lp4 power connector to connect to your system power supply and deliver up to 900ma of power per port to the usb 30 bus. If you're running 2 or more sensors in your setup, this is a must if you want a painless experience.

• All ports are dedicated giving you plenty of bandwidth for each individual sensors
• Works for extending oculus rift vr sensors
• Plug and play, no extra steps
• Excellent card for use with esxi in pci pass-through mode

Best For controlling multiple PC fans: Kingwin USB Host Controller

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The kingwin usb host controller should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. If you can make this fit into your pc in a way in which you have convenient access to the knobs, it's a good, inexpensive way to control 4 fans. The 6 slots card reader supports m2, xd, sd/sdhc/sdxc/mmc, micro sd/sdhc/sdxc (t-flash) cf/md, and ms (some card may require an adapter) which gives you complete accessibility.

The unit has to connect to a USB 3.0 header on the motherboard to function. This completely hides the LEDs. The Fan knobs adjust the speed well, and aside from the lack of build quality, this is a great fan controller. It does control 4 fans well and looks nice.

• Great front loading usb 3.0 and usb c and card readers
• Very useful for usb and most memory cards
• Works perfectly in the 2.5" slot
• You can hot-swap, or hot-plug to quickly access your devices

Best With Microsoft modern speaker: Febsmart USB Host Controller

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The febsmart usb host controller is specially designed for your daily usage and has all useful features. This febsmart would keep its speed when writing to 2 disks at the same time. It includes full-size and low-profile brackets. The 2X USB-C ports will share 16Gbps bandwidth. Unlike many other USB-C add-on cards, this one has built-in power converters, so there's no need to connect a SATA/molex cable from the PC's power supply.

The installation of the febsmart card using a pcie 4x motherboard connector is straight forward. It installs easily and works great. It is easy to install in mac pro 7,. They can also charge USB C devices, but not very fast.

• Works with microsoft modern speaker on dell precision and win
• Work great very fast car no power need to connect
• Include the thunderbolt dp and pcie features

Best With Ubuntu System: Startech USB Host Controller

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The startech usb host controller should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. The PCI Express usb 30 card ( with sata power) adds 4 external usb 30 ports to any pci express. It comes with a built-in sata power connector, each usb port can provide up to 900ma of power to devices that draw power from a host bus connection (500ma for usb 2.0) by connecting to your computer power supply. The spacing of the ports is tighter which can be helpful for those with little clearance between the top of the bracket and their computer case cover.

This is a nice upgrade allowing use of high speed storage devices. It connects to the sATA cable to provide a USB3 interface for external equipment. These have one camera running into each controller, no issues as ever. It is better to connect the SATA power for some high power consuming devices to avoid unexpected problems. This is reliant upon your hardware capabilities.

• Provides the user access to 3 external and 1 internal usb 3.0 ports
• Has enough power for normal devices, no wall transformer needed
• Works fine with a samsung p3 external hard drive
• Works with rift and two sensors

Best For Home Use: LSI USB Host Controller

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The lsi usb host controller's material feels more premium than its price would suggest. This card has had zero issues with setting up drives or detecting them and the performance of this card is much better. It provides fast signaling for high-bandwidth applications. It will easily connect to more drives than can fit in a home case. It provides internal connectivity in a low profile form factor. It is super easy and straight forward (plug and play) to install on the mobo, and connect up the 8 HDDs. It is great for home use.

• Using in a linux environment in it mode so no issues with board bios
• Authentic, well packaged, & works perfectly
• You can do the cost/benefit analysis for your own needs/risk acceptance

Best With older Hardware: Ableconn USB Host Controller

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The ableconn usb host controller is suitable and reliable and fits well with your daily usage. The Asmedia asm3142 is a pcie 3.0 x2 controller which supports two ports of usb3. It is powered by dual asmedia asm3142 controllers to provide dedicated 10gbps usb 3.2 transfer bandwidth for each port through pcie 3.0 x4 host interface. It can hold the power supply from a pcie bus to a 4-lane/low profile card which is 25w (max) per pci express specification. It is built with two asm3142 along with a asm2806a pcie switch to ensure the bandwidth for each port.

• Support up to 2a/5v on each usb-a downstream port
• Easy install, fast speeds, powered ports
• Fast usb 3.2 gen2 up to 10 gbps each port