Tech Bargain Thread: Post Your Deals Here!

[Couperin47]

WD Elements 750GB Portable Drive - USB 3.0   $60  - $10 coupon code - $20 rebate = $30   til 8/18
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=8996636&

Almost give-away price on a decent USB 3 external drive.

HP ProDesk 400 Desktop PC     $630  til 8/18
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=8909244

A good minicase desktop pc with 'sweet spot' specs:

Intel i5-4670 (3.4 Ghz) cpu with Intel 4600 graphics
8 Gb DDR3 1600
I Tb 7200 rpm HD
DVD burner
DVI & vga video out
a/b/g/n wifi & Gig ethernet
2 front panel USB 3.0 ports
keyboard & mouse
1 pci express x16 and 3 pic express x1 slots

Aside from adding a boot ssd, this is a very reasonable box for those who don't want to build.
Hard to tell what it ships with.. implies Win 7 pro with free upgrade to 8.1 if you so desire.
Compare this to:

Lenovo H530 Desktop PC    $550  til 8/18
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=8986548

Similar formfactor to above, differences:

Intel i5-4460 (trivially slower..3.2 Ghz)
Video out is HDMI and vga
includes front panel 7 in 1 card reader.
Win 7 Home premium
 

 

[Couperin47]

Roku 1 Digital HD  refurb   $30 til 8/19
http://www.neweggflash.com/product/15-328-012?utm_source=NFEmail081814


ASUS VN289H Black 28" Monitor   $250 free ship til 8/19
http://www.neweggflash.com/product/24-236-392?utm_source=NFEmail081814

28" IPS monitor
1920x1080  16:9
HDMI and vga
Vesa mount
Internal speakers
Includes HDMI to DVI cable

This is an LED backlit monitor that uses direct DC brightness adjustment (not switching) so eliminates the flicker some detect.
At least $270 anywhere else.

 

[Couperin47]

Monoprice 27" IPS-ZERO-G Slim Monitor WQHD 2560x1440 - Dual Link DVI, VGA - MPLE27QADV  til  8/22
$327 - $37 coupon = $290   free ship
http://monoprice.shop.rakuten.com/p/27-ips-zero-g-slim-monitor-wqhd-2560x1440-dual-link-dvi-vga/254863185.html?scid=em_Promotional_20140818SS1&adid=28884

Rakuten once again seriously discounting Monoprice

Anyway, this is $359 at Monoprice's own site PLUS shipping. Reviews are very good, note you can't reach 2560x1440 resolution unless your video card has dual link DVI output and you have a good dual link cable (Displayport can also do this, but this monitor doesn't have a Displayport input)
 

 

[Couperin47]

Monoprice 27" IPS-Glass Panel Pro LED Monitor   $387 - $37 coupon = $350 with free ship  til 8/22
http://monoprice.sho...nal_20140820SS2
 
 
Rakuten contines it's serious undercutting of Monoprice's own site. This is the upgraded version of the 2560x 1440  16:9 monitor listed 2 days ago:
 
We have a antiglare glass covered screen, we now have Dual DVI, HDMI, Displayport and...vga inputs.
Monoprice wants $461 PLUS shipping for this.

 

[Couperin47]

Newegg has a large number of decent extra discounts on a wide range of stuff.. so much that you just have to browse for yourself:
 
http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemail/Aug-0-2014/MultiCategoryWide_21/index-landing.html

 

[Couperin47]

Lenovo Outlet
 
Prices and availability getting a bit better. I'm linking to this as an example of what sort of prices you should be shooting for.. .they have 5 atm, probably gone in a few hours but if the link remains you can see what $417 can buy you: a serious laptop with pretty much everything most would want... and an M.2 2242 drive can be added as an SSD boot drive to make this a real powerhouse (for around $80):
 
http://outlet.lenovo.com/outlet_us/itemdetails/20C6X009US/445

 

[Omar's Wacky Neighbor]

A lot are jumping on this 3 TB WD retail HDD for $89 shipped, either from frys or as a PM:
 
http://www.frys.com/product/7725758?site=sa:adpages%20page38_FRI%20date:082214

 

[Couperin47]

SeaSonic Platinum-1000 1000W ATX12V / EPS12V 80 PLUS PLATINUM Certified Full Modular Power Supply

with promo code EMCPBHG29 and after $20 rebate = $150   til 8/24
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151105

You never see top of the line Seasonic on sale, and this is 'over the top' Seasonic. Now why you want this, unless one of your hobbies is electrocuting small mammals, is an entirely different question....


Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD30EFRX 3TB   a PAIR of drives for $220   til 8/24
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1814713&nm_mc=EMC-EXPRESS082314

Populate a NAS with drives specially designed for such use, these are 'tuned' for Raid use, but still 5400 rpm drives, with 3 year warranty.


Seagate STBD6000100 6TB 128MB Cache HD  with code EMCPBHG26  $280  til 8/24
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178520

I'm not a fan of current Seagate offerings and this is a truly terrifying drive: 5400 rpm, only 2 year warranty and you get the opportunity to lose a whole 6 Tb as soon as it starts clicking...
 
 
Dell Latitude E6400 laptop refurb $190  til 8/30
http://www.neweggflash.com/product/9SIA43F1C53055

Newegg refurbs are all over the place, this is very cheap for those who want something useable at a bottom end price:

It is an Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 cpu (2.2 Ghz)
14.2 " screen
2 Gig ram
160 Gb HD
DVD burner
b/g wireless
Win 7 Pro x32
90 day warranty

Now why you probably should skip this unless you like gambling, exact quote:

Unit may arrive with minor scuffs which is consistent with refurbished products.
Battery is considered a perishable item, and is not covered under standard warranty.

Translation: These are all going to arrive with dead or near dead batteries, figure on having to buy one immediately.

 

[Couperin47]

SSD Gamble ?   til 8/30
 
It's been axiomatic that no one who is knowledgeable ever buys a refurb hard drive... the savings are never that great, the warranties are always 90 days and almost any data is worth more than the headache of losing it all. Now here is Newegg offering a selection of Corsair refurb SSDs. There's not much that can go wrong with an SSD and generally nobody would even attempt to 'repair' such a device by unsoldering and resoldering the surface mount components onto the single board inside such a device. These are all assembled and soldered robotically.  So if it works, it should continue to work... and we are told these have been "Recertified" which should mean they meet the specs of a new device. All well and good... and the savings are decent. A mid-pack performing 120 Gb SSD for $50, for example. So what's the fly in the ointment on these deals ?  A 30 day warranty... If you're feeling lucky:
 
http://www.neweggflash.com/campaign/2614?utm_source=NFEmail082314&utm_medium=index&utm_campaign=SaleBanner_B2E_CorsairSSD&cm_mmc=EMC-NFEmail082314-_-SaleBanner_B2E_CorsairSSD-_-2614-_-NA

 

[OttoC]

NSFW
 

Spoiler

20% off today -- http://www.autoblow2.com/

 

[jayhoz]

I have ordered two of these Refurb Logitech Harmony 700 remotes from Meritline.  No issues with them whatsoever.
 
http://www.meritline.com/logitech-harmony-700-universal-remote-control---p-92497.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter140826md&hq_e=el&hq_m=2936966&hq_l=5&hq_v=e48cdb0838
 
Use promo code MLCB26AN to get it down to $59.99.  That's 50% off the full new price.

 

[Couperin47]

Rakuten once again undercuts Monoprice on their monitors, this time ALL OF THEM   til 8/28:
 
30" IPS LED Backlit LCD Panel WQXGA 2560x1600 Dual Link DVI-D, DisplayPort, HDMI, VGA w/Adjustable stand -Matte / Anti-Glare
with coupon til 8/28   $600 and free ship
http://monoprice.shop.rakuten.com/p/30-ips-led-backlit-lcd-panel-wqxga-2560x1600-dual-link-dvi-d/265474975.html?scid=em_Promotional_20140826Dedicated&adid=17582
 
Monoprice's current best 30" currently selling at their own site for $690 plus shipping
 
 
30" IPS CCFL Backlit LCD Panel WQXGA 2560x1600 Dual Link DVI-D, w/Adjustable stand -Matte / Anti-Glare
$500 with free ship
http://monoprice.shop.rakuten.com/p/30-ips-ccfl-backlit-lcd-panel-wqxga-2560x1600-dual-link-dvi-d-w/265474982.html?scid=em_Promotional_20140826Dedicated&adid=17582
 
Monoprice wants $576 plus shipping
 
27" IPS-Glass Panel Pro LED Monitor WQHD 2560x1440- 440cd/m2 - HDMI® 1.4 / DVI / VGA / DisplayPort 1.2 w/Built in Speakers
$350 with free ship
http://monoprice.shop.rakuten.com/p/27-ips-glass-panel-pro-led-monitor-wqhd-2560x1440-440cd-m2-hdmi-1-4/252439954.html?scid=em_Promotional_20140826Dedicated&adid=17582
 
Monoprice wants $461 plus shipping
 
27" IPS-ZERO-G Slim Monitor WQHD 2560x1440 - Dual Link DVI, VGA
$280 with free ship
http://monoprice.shop.rakuten.com/p/27-ips-zero-g-slim-monitor-wqhd-2560x1440-dual-link-dvi-vga/254863185.html?scid=em_Promotional_20140826Dedicated&adid=17582
 
Monoprice wants $399 plus shipping

 

[Couperin47]

Canon imageCLASS MF8280cw Wireless 4-In-1 Color Laser Multifunction

at Amazon   $211 with free ship
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BS6WYHC/?tag=extension-kb-20

Color Multifunction with wireless connectivity doc feeder and pretty much everything you could want and some stuff (like fax) nobody really needs anymore. Starter carts but inexpensive generic carts are available everywhere.
 
LOL AND... Newegg promptly beats the crap out of this... JUST THIS AFTERNOON TIL MIDNIGHT 8/27
Shellshocker deal... same MF unit   $170 with free ship... which is about the lowest price I have seen in a very long time on a Color MF unit with wireless connect
http://www.newegg.com/special/shellshocker.aspx?nm_mc=EMC-GD082714&cm_mmc=EMC-GD082714-_-index-_-bottomBanner-_-ShellShocker-EB3&et_cid=10696&et_rid=2267858

 

[Couperin47]

TOSHIBA PH3300U-1I72 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Retail Kit

with promo code til 8/29  $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822149396&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL082814

3Tb 7200 rpm has 3 yr warranty and feedback has them more reliable than WD's own standard 3 yr warranty drives.
Box says Toshiba, label on the drive tells you Hitachi Global... and they are all owned by WD.
What makes this even more desirable is it's not OEM, it's the full retail box which means it will arrive in far better shape..none of that one layer of bubblewrap on a bare drive bouncing around in a too big box...


Samsung 840 EVO 120BW 120Gb SSD  a PAIR of these drives for $145  til 8/29
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1817400&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL082814&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL082814-_-EMC-082814-Index-_-Combo-_-Combo1817400-LMF0A

Samsung's fine standard 120Gb SSD, perfect to be your boot drive,  Amazon wants $84 for these today.. good price if you can find a need for 2...

BTW, reviews now at Newegg on the refurb Corsair SSDs, the bulk of the reviews on the $50 120Gb model. Fully 50% of the reviews say theirs died within 1 or 2 months... so it seems refurb SSD, so far, are about as good a buy as refurb hard drives...just say no.

 

[Harry Hooper]

HP is selling a new i7 desktop with 8GB RAM and 1 TB hard drive for $604.99. You need to click on the link and enter coupon code = PC599Q2
 
It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
 

• 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4770 processor quad-core [3.4GHz, 8MB Shared Cache]
• Intel HD Graphics [DVI-D]
• 8GB DDR3-1600MHz [1 DIMM ]
• 1TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
• SuperMulti DVD Burner
• 15-in-1 Multi-slot Media Card Reader, 4 USB Ports (Front/Top), Audio [Front 2USB2.0, Top 2USB3.0]
• Integrated Sound, Envy Audio; Beats Audio
• HP USB keyboard and optical mouse
• HP WLAN 802.11 b/g/n 1x1 MCard BT
• 300W Power supply

 
 
TigerDirect has its similarly equipped but beefier brother, the ProDesk G1 400 for $679.99 after $20 rebate. It comes with a 3-year warranty. You might be able to get another $15 off, see here.

 

[jayhoz]

Any opinions of this 240 GB SSD from PNY for $79 AR?  I am not a big fan of PNY as a company and have heard mixed reviews of their SSD?  Anyone own one?
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178720&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL082914&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL082914-_-EMC-082914-Index-_-SSD-_-20178720-L0B

 

[Couperin47]

Any opinions of this 240 GB SSD from PNY for $79 AR?  I am not a big fan of PNY as a company and have heard mixed reviews of their SSD?  Anyone own one?
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178720&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL082914&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL082914-_-EMC-082914-Index-_-SSD-_-20178720-L0B

 
PNY has been around forever, 2nd tier, if you get a good one it will be a below midpack performer but ok, if you don't... their service and customer support will infuriate you, just look at the reviews. Their memory sticks are also like that: cheap and slow. Spend a few bucks more for Samsung, Intel, Toshiba, Crucial, Plextor even the new Toshiba owned-OCZ...you won't regret it and you will get better performance.

 

[Couperin47]

G.SKILL 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory
with promo code EMCPBHA27   $38
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231481

Laptop memory which should work for 98% of current laptops. DDR3 1600 (almost all laptops use 1333 or 1600 speed) and Cas 11 1.5 v.  No rebate nonsense, This is how you double up the memory of the way most laptops ship these days, and the increase from 4 to 8 Gig of ram makes a significant difference in the speed of Win 7 or 8. Note: if you already have 8 Gig you probably have both SODIMM slots filled and cannot increase memory unless you get a very pricey 8 Gig stick and replace an existing 4 Gig stick.

Lenovo G50 (59421808) Notebook Intel Core i7 4510U   $630
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834317599

This laptop is a strange combo of good and meh features:

i7 dual core (good) but at 2 Ghz (meh, most i5 are clocked at 2.4 or 2.5)
15.6 screen (good), Intel DH 4000 graphics (good) but 1366 x 768 resolution (meh)
8 Gb ram (good)
1 Tb HD (good) but 5400 rpm (meh)
DVD burner (good)
HDMI & vga video out
b/g/n wifi and BT (good)
10/100 ethernet (no gig ethernet, meh)
Full keyboard with numeric keypad and touchpad has real switches (good)
Win 8.1

If this mix suits you, it's one of the lowest price i7 laptops you're likely to find.

 

[Couperin47]

Tripp Lite Smart LCD 1300VA Tower Line UPS with coupon good til 8/31 $110 + shipping ($12-15)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7617092&csid=_61&rrpl=cart_page.rvi&rrstr=RecentHistoricalItems&rrindex=0


High quality serious UPS powerful enough for any large desktop and 1 or 2 monitors. Software connects via USB to any PC or Mac to monitor and control shutdown. More importantly, it serious filters your power and eliminates instabilities from surges, spike and sags in your power. You attach your puter, monitors, modem and router..you do NOT connect any laser printer. I have units of this quality for all my computers.

 

[Couperin47]

Plextor M5P Xtreme Series PX-256M5Pro 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

til 8/31 with $25 rebate = $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820249033

One of the fastest 256 Gb SSD, 7mm will fit thin laptops.

 

[Omar's Wacky Neighbor]

Amazon Warehouse has 13 iPhone 4S 64gb VZW in Like New cond for $237.

Not an earth shatteringprice, but possibly worth the slight premium since you're dealing with Amazon. Any Like New phones direct from Amazon are usually MUCH higher. Point of reference, buy back on most sites is $75-85.
 
EDIT:  And back up to the usual $400+ Like New price now.

 

[Harry Hooper]

Intel Cherryville 520 Series 120 GB SSD for $59.99 at Amazon.

 

[Couperin47]

HP ProBook 6450b Intel Core i5 4GB Memory 120GB SSD 14.1" WebCam Notebook     $300 with free ship
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=8986448&sku=1AS-102406258

This is a TigerDirect refurb that may be worth the risk. In general their refurbs can be all over the map in terms of condition, but this one is a bit different:

It will be a serious performer:

i5 Dual Core Intel (2.4 Ghz)
14.1 "  1366x768 screen (antiglare not glossy)
4 Gig ram
120 Gb SSD
Displayport video out
b/g/n wifi
gig ethernet
touchpad has real switches
Win 7 Pro x64

Keyboard does NOT include a numeric pad, 3 USB 2.0 ports (no USB 3.0)

Reasons why this is desirable: With a boot SSD and good i5 cpu this will be an excellent performer, better yet there is an unused expansion bay to which you can add a DVD burner, or better yet a 2nd real HD so it can have tons of storage and these can easily be found via eBay (the bay caddy to add a HD is available there for a whopping $10).
Even better, it comes with a full 12 month warranty from "Advanced Skyline Tech" which tells us that the refurb was not done by HP, but at least by some company willing to stand behind it for more than the usual 90 days... which also makes it likely it isn't shipping with a totally dead battery.
 

 

[Omar's Wacky Neighbor]

Wow, it being Tiger Direct, I figured the $300 final cost would be after a sizable rebate.  No rebate at all......

 

[Couperin47]

Wow, it being Tiger Direct, I figured the $300 final cost would be after a sizable rebate.  No rebate at all......

 
yeah, surprising in a number of respects: no rebate games, a full year warranty, and just so folks understand: you can get that bay tray for 10 bucks. installing any 2.5" sata hard drive (or an even bigger SSD for that matter...) in the tray involves plugging it in, screwing it down, then sliding that tray into the laptop (1 or 2 screws removed to get the bay cover off). Then you simply partition and format the HD and you're done.

 

[Couperin47]

SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold ((SS-650KM Active PFC F3)) 650W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD power supply

with promo code EXLPAPG226  and $15 rebate  =  $70  til  9/4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=17-151-088&nm_mc=EMC-GD090314

Newegg continues sales on Seasonic, which are rare. Seasonic is the RollsRoyce of power supplies, this is top of the line, modular at the size right for those building a 1 or 2 really high end video card rig. Overkill for anything less, but at this price...who cares ?


Intel 530 Series SSDSC2BW240A4K5 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

$130 - $25 rebate = $105  TODAY ONLY SHELL SHOCKER DEAL 9/3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167177

7mm, fits the slimmest laptops, 5 year warranty Full kit: mounting bracket, screws, shim for 9mm slots, even better you get the Intel toolbox software which supports  TRIM for those who are either running XP or on hardware which does not have the AHCI option for sata drives.

 

[Couperin47]

HP V702 128 Gb USB 3.0 flash drive  $40  til 9/6
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=9099388&sku=KNY-102513264
 
Good price on a genuinely fast big USB 3 thumb drive. Very basic, no activity led, cap you can lose (it will store on back, except if you actually want to use the hole back there to attach to a keyring or anything else, then you're sool). Speeds will vary depending how you format this: exFAT is fastest, only reason to use NTFS is if you want to boot from this.

 

[Couperin47]

Newegg coupons
 
A dizzying selection of coupon discounts on all sorts of stuff ranging from 10% to 25%, sometimes on whole categories of stuff, sometimes on specific products, expirations run from 2 days to a week...no way to summarize, but if you're looking for something in particular, worth exploring:
 
http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemail/Sep-0-2014/CouponS-05/index-landing.html?nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL090514&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL090514-_-EMC-090514-Index-_-E0-_-PromoWord&et_cid=10917&et_rid=2267858

 

[SumnerH]

HP V702 128 Gb USB 3.0 flash drive  $40  til 9/6
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=9099388&sku=KNY-102513264
 
Good price on a genuinely fast big USB 3 thumb drive. Very basic, no activity led, cap you can lose (it will store on back, except if you actually want to use the hole back there to attach to a keyring or anything else, then you're sool). Speeds will vary depending how you format this: exFAT is fastest, only reason to use NTFS is if you want to boot from this.

Exfat has significantly more compatibility problems than NTFS; use it only if speed is your most important criterion, or if you've verified all the devices you work with support it and aren't worried about going to another site or friend's house or whatever and finding you can't read your stuff.

 

[Couperin47]

Exfat has significantly more compatibility problems than NTFS; use it only if speed is your most important criterion, or if you've verified all the devices you work with support it and aren't worried about going to another site or friend's house or whatever and finding you can't read your stuff.

 
Yes I've had issues too. There is no 'perfect answer': FAT gets silly for the sort of large files that will get onto a 128 Gb drive, exFAT as you say has issues, especially if your friend's puter is ancient and running XP, NTFS is much slower and while in theory you should be able to boot, lot's of old machines have BIOSes that flat don't work well with any USB as a boot medium. Which is why I still have available a selection of utilities on CD/DVD, if a machine has one, you can at least be 99% certain you can get that to boot/read.
 
I mentioned exFAT because if using NTFS on this drive, in many machines the speed will be disappointing.

 

[SumnerH]

I use ext4 for things I only need on my machines, and NTFS where portability is a concern.

 

[bosox188]

Any thoughts on this one? Seems like a pretty decent deal especially if you're looking to keep it pretty portable at 12.1"
 
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8466392&CatId=4936
 
HP EliteBook 2540p Notebook PC - Intel Core i5 2.53GHz, 4GB DDR3, 250GB HDD, 12.1" Display, Windows 7 Professional (Off-Lease)
 
1 Year Warranty
12.1" 1200x800 antiglare LED
i5 Dual Core 2.53GHz (i5-540M?)
4GB DDR3
250GB HDD 7200RPM
a/b/g/n WiFi
1 VGA Out
1 DisplayPort
3 USB 2.0
1 Firewire
 
Doesn't seem to specify ethernet speed but searching elsewhere looks like it should be gigabit

 

[Couperin47]

Any thoughts on this one? Seems like a pretty decent deal especially if you're looking to keep it pretty portable at 12.1"
 
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8466392&CatId=4936
 
HP EliteBook 2540p Notebook PC - Intel Core i5 2.53GHz, 4GB DDR3, 250GB HDD, 12.1" Display, Windows 7 Professional (Off-Lease)
 
1 Year Warranty
12.1" 1200x800 antiglare LED
i5 Dual Core 2.53GHz (i5-540M?)
4GB DDR3
250GB HDD 7200RPM
a/b/g/n WiFi
1 VGA Out
1 DisplayPort
3 USB 2.0
1 Firewire
 
Doesn't seem to specify ethernet speed but searching elsewhere looks like it should be gigabit

 
Price isn't nearly as good as the 6450b above, same refurber and warranty which may be OK.  $360 for a 12", small screen is getting into the range you can find refurbs of far newer stuff with similar cpus.

 

[Couperin47]

Usual 2 day sale at Newegg, here's link to all items, comments below:
http://promotions.newegg.com/neemail/guerrilla/LP/14-SEP/index-ELECtpl08.html?nm_mc=EMC-GD090814&cm_mmc=EMC-GD090814-_-index-_-Header-_-SeeAll&et_cid=10966&et_rid=2267858

Trendnet powerline kit and the WD Media Player refurb are both rock bottom priced and these are endorsed  by our very own Sumner. The WD handles more media formats than anything out there.

The Crucial MX100 SSD  is one of the best, 7mm will fit thin laptops, at $101 for 256 Gb, resist the urge to save $11 on lesser brands.

A note on the refurb Dell E6320 offered, it's from third party Think Green PC. They seem responsible, they claim it's a Class A refurb, but:

1. only 90 day warranty
2. At their own site, Think Green sells the same machine for $25 more...but with a full year warranty
3. They are very clear at their site that their warranty does NOT include the battery and used machines may/will have batteries near the end of their life...which is pretty much guaranteed to be true.
4. For the differences involved, and after you have investigated the price of a new battery, there's a decent selection of HP refurbs at Think Green, which also runs a store at eBay, reviews seem decent.  They also have a ton of refurb Dells.  http://thinkgreenpc.com/laptops/hp-laptops.html

The only refurbs that ever have a chance of having the battery replaced are those directly from the manufacturer, and I have yet to hear of any Lenovo Outlet laptop that arrived with anything but a brand new battery.

 

[Harry Hooper]

Woot.com is selling 4TB Hitachi refurb hard drives for $99.99 plus $5 shipping. Could be worth it in a RAID or ZFS-type setup. Bare drive with 60-day warranty.
 
 
 
Edit: Sold out now, but FTR it was the HDS5C4040ALE630

 

[Couperin47]

Woot.com is selling 4TB Hitachi refurb hard drives for $99.99 plus $5 shipping. Could be worth it in a RAID or ZFS-type setup. Bare drive with 60-day warranty.

 
Refurb drives are a big no no, using them in RAID setups where there's extra stress...really nuts

 

[Harry Hooper]

 
Refurb drives are a big no no, using them in RAID setups where there's extra stress...really nuts

 
Meh, if it's going to fail, it's going to fail. Find out quick and have redundancy/backup.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

 
Meh, if it's going to fail, it's going to fail. Find out quick and have redundancy/backup.

 
Uh, they all fail. Every last one of them. The only question is when. MTBF.

 

[Harry Hooper]

 
Uh, they all fail. Every last one of them. The only question is when. MTBF.

 
 
Yes, of course, but the context was in terms of a refurb being especially suspect.

 

[SumnerH]

 
Refurb drives are a big no no, using them in RAID setups where there's extra stress...really nuts

RAID's the ideal place for refurb drives (as long as it's a sane RAID setup--never RAID 5/6), as long as the $/(MB*MTBF) justifies it.  It's home/very small business uses where you don't have redundancy and backups are sporadic that MTBF on its own becomes most important.

 

[Couperin47]

RAID's the ideal place for refurb drives (as long as it's a sane RAID setup--never RAID 5/6), as long as the $/(MB*MTBF) justifies it.  It's home/very small business uses where you don't have redundancy and backups are sporadic that MTBF on its own becomes most important.

 
Well this is all impossible to debate because the initial post is to a generic Woot link and I can't find any link to the exact product or the sale. As far as i can see, the only branded Toshiba 4 Tb drives are actually Enterprise quality drives (or so they are billed). There's an external Canvio drive that has just started shipping, so refurbs of what's inside them seems highly unlikely. Add to this that all current "Toshiba" drives that I know of are actually HGST products to which the Toshiba name has just been added, and it's difficult to decide what we would be dealing with here. Meanwhile Amazon has at least 3 dealers selling refurbs of the Toshiba Enterprise 4 Tb drive (MG03ACA400) at prices ranging from $271 to $318, while at Amazon others have the same drive new, in bulk, for $240...none of which makes any sense.
 
As you point out, RAID can mean anything from simple redundancy to the insanity of 5/6. MTBF is also meaningless here for at least 2 reasons: the MTBF ratings of brand new drives these days is a statistical derivative with little real practical meaning for the particular drive anyone is holding in their hand. It's utterly meaningless on a refurb, depending on what got  'fixed', where it got 'fixed' and with bare drives how much it got shipped and with what protection before it gets into your hands. The one thing you can be absolutely sure of is that such a drive has been shipped around a lot more than a factory new drive and the odds are a lot of that shipping did not take place in anything resembling original containers. The only good news in all this is that, based on actual experience and reports at places like Newegg, a very high proportion of refurb drives are either DOA or die almost immediately, meaning that whopping 60 day warranty will be useful in minimizing your eventual costs to only shipping, and all the time, effort and data loss involved.

 

[SumnerH]

It's obviously possible that they're so terrible they shouldn't be used anywhere.  
 
But your post was implying that using them in RAID arrays was crazier than using them as standalones--that's exactly backward.   If they are at all usable, RAID is the most likely place for them to be worth it. Safely using shitty disks that fail a lot but are cheap is the whole reason RAID was invented.
 

 MTBF is also meaningless here for at least 2 reasons: the MTBF ratings of brand new drives these days is a statistical derivative with little real practical meaning for the particular drive anyone is holding in their hand

 
(Note that by MTBF I mean the true MTBF for a drive, not the manufacturer's rating.)  
 
That's true for single drive setups, but the more redundancy you introduce the less likely fluky outliers are to drive your numbers and the more the statistics matter.

 

[JerBear]

RAID's the ideal place for refurb drives (as long as it's a sane RAID setup--never RAID 5/6), as long as the $/(MB*MTBF) justifies it.  It's home/very small business uses where you don't have redundancy and backups are sporadic that MTBF on its own becomes most important.

What do you consider the sane RAID setups if you don't like 5/6?

 

[Couperin47]

It's obviously possible that they're so terrible they shouldn't be used anywhere.  
 
But your post was implying that using them in RAID arrays was crazier than using them as standalones--that's exactly backward.   If they are at all usable, RAID is the most likely place for them to be worth it. Safely using shitty disks that fail a lot but are cheap is the whole reason RAID was invented.
 
 
 
 
(Note that by MTBF I mean the true MTBF for a drive, not the manufacturer's rating.)  
 
That's true for single drive setups, but the more redundancy you introduce the less likely fluky outliers are to drive your numbers and the more the statistics matter.

 
Well the 'real' MTBF we both agree is an unknown number and, yes, in RAID settings that result in redundancy that's true, but most/many home users want RAID to obtain maximum speed/response or really massive single volume sizes. The first involves RAID versions we both consider insane (unless you have absolutely no concern for the data, loss thereof or failure...) and in the 2nd, you can have safety/redundancy depending on how greedy you are about squeezing maximum capacity out of the drives involved.

 

[JerBear]

Newegg has 512GB Samsung 840 Pro SSDs for $290 after EBlast code EMCPAWW22

 

[Couperin47]

Newegg has 512GB Samsung 840 Pro SSDs for $290 after EBlast code EMCPAWW22

 
Good buy and especially pertinent here because this is the real reason interest in 'insane RAID' setups have declined and should be ignored ....or have they.
In fact one version of RAID actually works very well to seriously boost speeds of SSD drives.
 
Requirements:
 
Your motherboard must support Intel RST  Driver Version 11.0 or later, which means it, obviously, must use an Intel chipset and generally this means only last 2 generations of Intel chipsets (but see below).
You must run Win 7 or later
 
In those cases you can run RAID 0 with full support for the TRIM function. If you run any SSD without TRIM there's a high probability your SSD's performance will degrade seriously over time (this depends on the quality of the drive's own cleanup routines and those vary widely). In a few cases you can run a TRIM cleanup manually via tools provided by the drive maker: Intel''s own toolbox provides this option, for it's SSD drives.
 
RAID 0 is one of the 'insane' RAID options... built only for speed: We 'stripe' the volume over 2 or 4 drives so they are knitted together into one large volume, there is no redundancy, no parity checking, nothing to protect you from any glitches. The resulting volume is the size of the 2 or 4 drives total. If anything...ANYTHING goes wrong on any drive in the array... you lose it all...period. This is why it's ridiculous to run refurb drives in such a setup, but let's look at this another way: Such a setup, if your drives are reliable, is no more or less of a risk than a single drive...you just back it up somewhere somehow...and SSD drives are very reliable. So computer geeks who are the equivalent of drag racers, they always want more speed, have experimented with RAID 0 using SSD drives and it turns out they are better suited for this than mechanical drives ever were: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2365767/feed-your-greed-for-speed-by-installing-ssds-in-raid-0.html
 
If you are interested in trying this, you can easily use 2 small matched SSD drives  (2x 64 for a 128 Gb boot or 2x 120 for a 240 Gb drive). This Anandtech article will explain in depth why you want the Intel RST driver 11.0 or above so TRIM support works: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6161/intel-brings-trim-to-raid0-ssd-arrays-on-7series-motherboards-we-test-it
 
Finally, this works so well that some geeks got frustrated they were locked out of trying this on old motherboards and earlier chipsets. It turned out, after considerable investigation (by geeks who clearly have no lives whatsoever...) that if you modified the ROM included with older Intel chipsets...back as far as the Intel P35 chipsets (released in 2007) and the BIOS of these old mb, you could get TRIM functions from Win 7 and the driver to work. Now nobody but an obsessive is likely to give a damn about putting this much effort into making this work on hardware that old... but apparently some are doing this:
http://www.win-raid.com/t202f28-TRIM-in-RAID-seems-possible-for-all-Intel-chipsets-from-P-up.html
 
What this means is that, in desktops, where mounting 2 SSD drives is generally trivial, even 2 small 'meh' SSD drives (like the PNY stuff) can be made to perform like champs if you take the time and effort to set them up on a RAID 0. Now does any normal person need significant speed increases in their SSD performance ? Of course not, but if having to wait a whole 11 seconds for that game to load is really driving you crazy....

 

[Harry Hooper]

I know you didn't create the "RAID 0" designation, but it drives me nuts. The "R" in RAID is supposed to stand for redundant.

 

[JerBear]

What this means is that, in desktops, where mounting 2 SSD drives is generally trivial, even 2 small 'meh' SSD drives (like the PNY stuff) can be made to perform like champs if you take the time and effort to set them up on a RAID 0. Now does any normal person need significant speed increases in their SSD performance ? Of course not, but if having to wait a whole 11 seconds for that game to load is really driving you crazy....

Or you could make an array with 24 high quality ones and write at 2GB/sec.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eULFf6F5Ri8

 

[SumnerH]

What do you consider the sane RAID setups if you don't like 5/6?

 
"RAID 5 is no longer recommended for any business critical information on any drive type" -- Memo from Dell to clients in 2011

Why RAID 5 stops working in 2009

 
 
6 isn't completely insane in smaller setups, but drives are so cheap that I don't personally risk it (I have 22 TB of disks, 11TB usable with full 1+0 redundancy).
 
 
 
The problem with RAID 5 is this: modern disks have a high early failure rate.  They're also so big that it takes a long time to copy data over.  And they're cheap.   RAID 5 nominally gives you (N-1) disks of space and yet redundancy against a single-disk failure.  There's a big "however" there, though: if you do have a failure, you'll still be able to read your data (slowly) in degraded mode.  
 
But it's the rebuild that becomes extremely dangerous: that involves a destructive rewrite of all N drives as it brings the new disk online, which means that it takes a LOOOONG time (has to write all the disks, not just the new one), and if there's a failure in the new drive or an unrecoverable bad sector that doesn't get autotranslated then you can lose the whole array.  Rebuild fails, drives are in an incoherent state, you can't even run in degraded mode.  With enough sweat you can probably save a lot of data,especially if your RAID driver keeps a full-size log to yet another drive that wasn't part of the array.  But if you have that drive, why didn't you do something more like RAID 1+0, or at least RAID 6?
 
ZDNet did some calculations, and with 7 1TB drives found that it's about 50/50 whether your RAID 5 rebuild will succeed or go tits up and eat your data.  With 4 2TB drives, you're at 40% chance of rebuild failure.  Some of their assumptions are off in the pessimistic direction and you may not have that many drives, but things get worse the bigger the drives get.
 
RAID 6 has a similar problem but at least you get 2 goes at the rebuild, so in smaller setups it's not absurd.
 
Bottom line, drives are cheap: if you care about your data, go ahead and do RAID 1+0.  That gives you 1-disk redundancy like RAID 5, and:
a) Rebuilds are a single disk copy essentially; much faster
b) Rebuilds don't lose coherency, so if the new drive fails you can try again with another
c) If a second drive fails before the rebuild is done, you're only in trouble if it's precisely the disk that was paired with the failed one.  If you have a 6-disk setup with 1+2, 3+4, and 5+6 paired, and disk 1 fails, you're still okay in 80% of single drive failures (if 3,4,5, or 6 fails, you're still okay; if 2 fails, you're in trouble).  So while RAID 5 and RAID 1+0 both nominally have single-disk redundancy, the real redundancy of RAID 1+0 is much higher than for RAID 5.
 
That's on top of the obvious performance benefits of RAID 1+0 over RAID 5.

 

[SumnerH]

I know you didn't create the "RAID 0" designation, but it drives me nuts. The "R" in RAID is supposed to stand for redundant.

 
Yeah, 0 isn't RAID.