Thinkpads Forum

Thought some people here might want to take advantage of the sale and mail in rebate on the popular high performance 200 GB Hitachi 7K200. Only $139.99 after MIR, plus $5.99 shipping. http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6822145160

MOD EDIT: Moved to Marketplace for better exposure to buyers from all series.

I ordered using this deal on Sunday, and as I'm typing this on my desktop my X61T is going through the Lenovo software preload setup on my new 7k200 today (Tuesday). Newegg has very fast shipping for $5.99.

My first impression is that the 7k200 is a lot quieter than the previous generation 7k100 it replaces. So far so good...

tarvoke wrote:if you've subscribed to the newegg deals newsletter, it's 129.99 after rebate. (I would post the coupon code, but it will only work for ppl who are subscribed to the newsletter already, sad to say)

[censored], and I was happy when I paid 180 on sale!

Edit: Tarvoke, I deleted your post by mistake, but the content is here...Harryc

I wish I had known about the additional newsletter discount before I ordered my second one of these drives last week. It already arrived. I guess I'll sign up for the future.

I got on this deal also. Wish I could save another $10.

Patience grasshopper...

These drives will be $99 everywhere in no more than a month.

Then $79 the month after.

Xmas retail-sales were horrible....and corp IT budgets are freezing up all over. There's a fair bit of industry panic behind the scenes already.

As just one example, the wholesale price of nand-flash fell 58% in only the past 90 days. There's a vast oversupply of it now; and all other PC parts as well.

Disruptions throughout the economy are right at the knee of an accelerating exponential curve.

Put in terms of Thinkpads specifically....there are mortgage, banking, etc. firms that are getting margin-calls right now this week...and they'll be going bankrupt all over the US (e.g. the call on Thornburg yesterday, and on Carlyle in the UK today).

All of their thousands and thousands of laptops will be dumped into the market en masse by the bankruptcy-auctions coming up.

Bottom-line: PC's and parts are going to be increasingly on fire-sale as the weeks and months go by this spring. Patience, where possible, will pay off handsomely.

Too bad I need my 'new' T60 15" right NOW... (current laptop has just gone flaky)

I think if catastrophic economic events could be predicted with that kind of certainty you'd be a rich man many times over, like the man who coined the maxim "be greedy when others are fearful." Nobody doubts that the economy is in a bad way, but I'm not so certain waves and waves of mortgage and banking firms are going to be liquidating their ThinkPads as a result anytime soon. That is, unless you work at one and have some insider information, in which case may I have dibs on the first crop of ThinkPads?

But more seriously, I think a more relevant development putting downward pressure on the price of the 7K200 is the announcement of Samsung's high performance Spinpoint MP2 7200 rpm 250 GB HD, as well as Hitachi's new Travelstar 5K320 which is shipping to OEMs as of now, which is why we're seeing this kind of deal available.

And hasn't prices for solid-state memory include the modules used in nand-flash drives been declining precipitously due to factors that don't affect spindle-based HDs as much?

umm....why would you assume I hadn't?

In point of fact, I did predict this scenario, back in 2002, and rearranged my bets accordingly. I've got no complaints on the return.

You used the word 'predict', but that wasn't what I was doing. I was referring to mortgage-bond related failures that have ALREADY occurred, and in large numbers.

A bond-trader friend of mine keeps what he calls "The Implodometer"...

It tracks failures of mortgage-bond related firms; and such bonds have been the underlying funding-mechanism for virtually all the so-called economic 'growth' of the past 10 years.

Anyway, the Implodometer passed 100 in Q4 2007.

That is 100 major mortgage-related firms failing in just 360 days.

That's up from -three- in 2006. Think about it....

Also, check out the -details- underlying this week's news about Thornburg and Carlyle that I referred to. Carlyle couldn't sell -agency- paper. If you know anything about the bond-biz, that fact whacks you right between the eyes.

I wasn't just blowing smoke. This is real stuff...and happening right now. Being in the precious-metals business, I'm exposed to this information every day.

You won't find reality on CNN....or any other mainstream-media. You have to dig deeper...into the industry press and insider-websites. As a starting-point for insider-info, try minyanville.com....people there post links to other good info-sources too.

In regards to the nand-flash....I did not cite that as a hard-drive specific or replacement relationship at all. I cited it as a single example of very recent and very savage shifts in wholesale prices and supply/demand in the PC/consumer-elex biz. As I said, it was just one example of an industry wide -trend- in supply/demand and pricing. That was my only point.


Again, the Carlyle failure last night that I mentioned earlier is notable in that it involved -agency paper-. This whole mess is NOT just a 'sub-prime' mess; as the mainstream media keeps trumpeting. It's more like a tsunami that's engulfing -every- type of financial-instrument.

If you have any significant coin in any accounts or funds (including so-called 'money market' funds, most of which in reality keep the money in at-risk mortgage-backed paper) which are not PURELY t-bill based; you'd be well-advised to move to t-bill-only funds immediately.

Better to give up a half-percent of interest for a year, while seeing how things shake out....than to lose it all...

Please, don't take my last post in the wrong way, I wasn't trying to start a debate. If the 7K200 is at $79 in May I will indeed kick myself for buying it now, immediate needs for extra storage space for my internal drive notwithstanding.

And at the risk of further hijacking this thread, I'll simply add that I only meant perhaps the economy in general and markets in particular may have a degree of uncertainty that makes forecasting them with precision rather difficult. History has amply shown that in downturns people may overemphasize areas of weakness and overlook regions of resilience elsewhere, just as in times of plenty people may forget that rougher times are bound to turn up.

As far as the OP's original topic is concerned, the 7K200 is up and running great. I'd read in some places that the newer generation 7K200 has an up to 20% performance increase versus even the original 7K100, and whereas that's not showing up in every situation I've encountered I do notice a difference. So I guess even different generations of HD's by the same manufacturer and of the spindle speed can have dramatic performance differences. Very pleased with the purchase, and now I don't have to lug around an external drive.

Yes, don't mind me....I shouldn't have gotten into it here in such length anyway.

And I did note that the patience was only for those who didn't need the drive right this minute...

Thanks for reporting the perf, and noise, differences in the 200 series.

I need large capacity (i.e. 160gb+) for my work; but have so far stayed with the 5400's specifcally due to noise issues with the 7200's.

Nice to hear I might now have the option to get faster response without suffering constant higher noise.

dozer wrote:Patience grasshopper...

These drives will be $99 everywhere in no more than a month.

Then $79 the month after.

That first one is quite a prediction. It's June and they're $95 at ZZF. After a $20 Mail In Rebate. Link.

dozer wrote:umm....why would you assume I hadn't?

In point of fact, I did predict this scenario, back in 2002, and rearranged my bets accordingly. I've got no complaints on the return.

but but but thats SIX years ago..
you missed some really spectacular highs over the next 3 plus years..

i was playing in the equity market upuntil last july(2007) and got a bad feeling with all the instability..
made some small $$ on transocean and h/p and and others and dumped just before the correction the following month and NOW look at it..

its no great prognostication to say the mortgage mess is a mess..

when greenspan made his frothy exuberance remark THAT was the sign to pay attention to even though many had been warning about the ARM resets coming up..
(only a fool would take a 1% ARM that will reset to 12%)..

well, it DID hit the fan big time..

i hope you did some trading at or near the highs and did not leave too much on the table..

AND, one final caveat, if this marxist get elected president, anyone with two dimes to rub together better head for the channel islands..

along with this final thought..

when the US Government says its ok to drill drill drill and al gore gets a personal tour of guantanamo the insane price of oil will start a decline..

its all based on fear..
and china/india/brazil/russia..

Interesting insights.

I agree the Mass media fools people and most people don't know any better. FREEDOM / DEMOCRACY of PRESS is a joke.. because its all Controlled.

Well, in dozer's defense the Bear Stearns debacle did happen literally a week or two after that original post of his.

On the other hand, where are the fire-sale $75 Flexview T60's and $100 SXGA+ X61 Tablets that he promised? I demand to know!