I ordered one of these (250GB laptop SATA drive) a few weeks ago, knowing that they weren’t in stock yet. Today, PC Connection says they’re in stock, shipping today, but mine is still marked “back-ordered”, and a call to customer service confirms that it won’t ship until around July 9th.

Why? Because it’s in stock in California, and she said that orders going to California have to ship from a warehouse in another state. So my shiny new drive has to be loaded onto a truck, driven a thousand miles or so, and then overnighted back to California.

And she’s not kidding. If I try to place a new order, it shows as “in stock, shipping today” right up to the moment I try to finish the transaction, at which point it switches to “2+ weeks”.

Feh.

[7/5 Update: we just got bit by this again, when we ordered a shiny new “in-stock” LED-backlit MacBook Pro for a new hire. It arrived two weeks after he did, shipped from Nashville. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting on my new drive…]

[7/10 Update: still hasn’t shipped, and customer service confirms that they still haven’t managed to ship any from their warehouse in California to their warehouse in Nashville. So, I ordered another one from Other World Computing, who’s had it in stock for weeks for $20 more, and who promises to have it on my desk by 10am tomorrow. I might leave the other order open and expense it at work; we’ve got several laptop users who’d love to have 250GB.]