Guy at work has a keyboard with 2 USB ports on it to daisy chain other devices off of. It can also work for connecting a thumb drive I suppose, but he uses it as 1 connection back to the PC and then his mouse plugs into 1 of the 2 ports and this way the cord doesnt have to reach all the way to the computer in the floor.
Myself I wouldnt want to have a keyboard with extra stuff hanging off its sides or back of it as for I tend to have things that come to rest on the keyboard occasionally from a stack of stuff that slides and comes to rest against the keyboard to my hands that occasionally rest on either side of the keyboard that could bump and damage a USB port with something plugged into them.
Myself I have a USB 2.0 HUB and it has a 5 volt power supply so that I dont have to worry about too many devices pulling too heavily on a single USB ports power. The HUB is located under my display where nothing will strike the plugs to break the USB ports.
As far as if they work. They do, but whether they are a suitable match for each user it all depends on the users work area and if they will find devices and extra cords hanging off a keyboard to be annoying. I wouldnt trust it to power anything through the USB port other than thumb drives. a 2.5" external hard drive for example that most are powered directly thru USB 5 volt power I wouldnt trust the daisy chain through keyboard to be able to carry enough current for its data safe operation.
Myself when it comes to keyboards. I found a liking to the HP Business Class Black and Grey Keyboards that HP mass produced that are very good keyboards, rugged for lots of heavy use and they have the feel of legacy 104 clicky-keyboards when typing which I prefer. I ended up buying 10 of them off of ebay for $57 ( $5.70 per keyboard ) about 9 years ago and I have gone through 2 of them with 8 brand new in boxes in my attic. Only problem is that they are PS2 connection type and so at some point I will probably have to get USB to PS2 adapters to connect to systems that are USB only connectivity like I already ran into with a Dell that I own.
Also I saw somewhere where they make stickers that you can add to keyboards to add the letters back after they wear off. Myself I dont need to hunt for keys so I use then well beyond printed letters wearing off, but when a key fails to take input from user or shift key starts to get stuck and make everything caps thats when they keyboard gets retired and a new one installed. The first keyboard I got 5 years out of and then the keys started to act up and I tossed it. It was heavily worn and wasnt worth trying to fix when I have new ones. This 2nd one I have used for last 4 years and no problems yet but a strong wear pattern in most commonly used keys and heavy wear mark in plastic of spacebar where I favor using my right thumb for spaces so spacebar looks brand new on the left corner and heavy polish gloss on the right.
Before buying any keyboards unless you had a specific model before to like it like I have, you can look at the user reviews and thats usually a good basis for what is good and what to avoid. I rarely buy anything that doesnt have user reviews unless its cheap enough to take the risk of buying junk and if its junk no big loss.
