| Value |  4.5 | | Performance | 4.5 | | Ease of Use | 4.5 | | Overall Satisfaction | 4.5 |
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5 of 5 Great Item Monday, June 09, 2008
victor from Newtown, CT
worked out of the box, nice size factor, a bit heavy but I like that though because it feels like it will not break easily, not a flimsy plastic box. Was this review helpful?  
5 of 5 Good product we have 3 of them Thursday, June 05, 2008
Bill Cremati from Davie, Florida
We had before purchased this product a few years ago but we where using it via USB 2.0 and we where very satisfied. We recently upgarded to esata and bought two more so all our external drives are now sata connected. The drives work excellently and perform with ease. I highly recommend this product as it has worked very well for us in the past. Was this review helpful?
1 of 5 good while it lasted Friday, May 16, 2008
A Customer from Santa Rosa, CA
The Cavalry CAXM3500 started out great. Fast, easy to set up and did everything that I expected a 500GB, external drive to do. I used it to rescue several gig of files off my old desktop computer. I stored my large map programs for my Garmin GPS on it. Then, without giving a warning, it died. It seeks endlessly, can't be recognized and makes a mechanical grinding, tapping noise. We all know what that means. It lasted less than a month! I read all the positive reviews here and thought it would be better. I've had other hard drives die before, but never without a warning and never so soon. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 It just lays there Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Richard Small from Tigard, OR
I needed an external hard drive and started reading reviews. Finally, I decided that this one was what I needed. I purchased it and when it arrived I followed the simple instructions and within 10 minutes was starting to store data from DVDs and CDs that I had laying all over the place. Now the data resides on this device in one single accessible location with a blue light on the end to show it is working, but otherwise just lays there on my desk, quietly ready... exactly what I needed. I am very pleased with my choice. Thanks Buy.com. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Great storage drive for the price Thursday, April 24, 2008
A Customer from Stevens Point,WI
It may be a while before you get your rebate back from Cavalry but if you follow all the rules it is doable. I purchased the drive because of the eSATA interface since I had an open SATA port on my motherboard. Be forewarned that you may need to go into your BIOS setup and enable this port because they usually have it turned off. Installing the eSATA bracket in an empty PCI slot was straight forward. Be sure to power up the drive before turning your computer back on. The manual available at Cavalry's web site is better than what they send you in the box. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Works well on Synology NAS Tuesday, April 22, 2008
A Customer from Austin, Texas
I use this to backup my NAS using the eSATA connection. Very quiet drive! No issues after using continuously for 2 weeks. My only complaint is the Cavalry's blue LED is always on and very bright. It produces shadows in a fairly large room. I fixed this particular issue with a piece of black electrical tape. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Super fast drive Sunday, April 13, 2008
A Customer from Texas
This drive is super fast with eSata connection. My motherboard does not have hot swap so I have to turn the drive on when I turn on the PC. The package comes with eSata cable and internal sata connector to the motherboard. The drive is WD drive. Was this review helpful?
1 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
4 of 5 Overall satisfied with a good product Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Stephen B from Saint Louis, MO
I've had this for only a couple days but I've developed a couple pro's and cons from my experience with this drive so far.
I like:
1.Pre-formatted: Plug it in and it's ready to go.
2.The SATA connection: As soon as I got it I threw a 67 gb file on the hard drive in 35 minutes while browsing the internet and listening to itunes. Later I plugged it in usb and it would have taken about 3 hours with no other programs running for the same file.
3.The price: Good for the amount of space
4.Heat: At the end of my 67 gb transfer the case was only slightly warm, which with normal idle use does not occur.
The cons:
1.The drive has to be turned on before the computer in order for it to be recognized, which can be somewhat of an annoyance, but no big deal if you keep it on the same computer.
2.It comes pre-formatted with only 465 gb of space, though this is plenty for my use.
3.Though it claims to come with a user manual I did not receive one, no big deal though. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Good price and fast Tuesday, February 26, 2008
A Customer from Provo, UT
It doesn't come with any "easy" software, but it is a great price and quite fast. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 No complaints Tuesday, February 26, 2008
A Customer from Illinois
I bought this drive because 1) it was the most affordable 500GB external drive I could find with e-SATA, and 2) it came with the SATA to e-SATA adaptor. The adaptor takes up one slot in the back of my PC, but using e-SATA is much faster than USB so it was worth it. I have another Cavalry external drive that has been reliable for nearly a year now, so hopefully this one will be too. Was this review helpful?
0 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 Excellent Monday, February 25, 2008
A Customer from Spokane, WA
I've had it for about three weeks. It runs for hours every day and the case doesn't get warm (it has no fan). I'm connecting via USB and haven't tried eSATA yet. I'd buy more if I needed them. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Works great Saturday, February 23, 2008
A Customer from Pearland, TX
I was looking for an external SATA drive with internal connector. I don't know if other SATA external drives also have this connector, but if they do, it wasn't made obvious in the product descriptions. So I was glad to see this since my server has no external SATA connector. It took me a couple of minutes only to install and I was up and going. This baby hums... Really fast (beats the heck out of USB) and still portable. Just what I was looking for. Great price, too. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Great product! Saturday, February 23, 2008
Virtualscope from Alexandria, LA
Shipping was fast. Setup was just plug it in and go. I have not tried the esata connection but I'm sure it would work, as advertised. Good product for a very good price! Would highly recommend. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Works as expected - even with my 8300HD DVR Friday, February 22, 2008
David from San Antonio, TX
I bought it for the eSATA interface so that it can perform at maximum speed. I used it for backing up my computer and for video editing. On a whim, I tried it on my Scientific-Atlanta Explorer 8300HDC DVR, and it worked fine. Mine has a Western Digital drive in it, and I image that not all do, so your reselts may vary. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Great drive especially for the price Friday, February 22, 2008
A Customer from Birdsboro, PA
We were getting ready to buy an external hard drive, did some research, saw that the Cavalry drive was rated good, saw it on the Deals of the Day, bought it, and glad we did! Easy to use, quiet, and fast. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Excellent Wednesday, February 20, 2008
mach99 from New Hartford, NY
My unit contains a Western Digital HD, with extremely fast disk access via eSATA, much faster than USB 2. It's nice to have the eSATA cable and bracket as part of the package - other brands do not include them.
NOTE: as the instructions mention, you must power on the external HD before turning on the PC, for the BIOS to recognize the eSATA drive during bootup. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Happy So Far Wednesday, February 20, 2008
A Customer from Kenly, NC
No problems so far and very pleased with the performance. Easy to install and use in my old Dell. Using mine as a backup drive so it's not on all the time. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Does what I wanted Wednesday, February 20, 2008
A Customer from Pleasantville, NY
A cheap and easy way to add extra storage to my home DVR. Was simple enough to configure using the DVR's eSATA interface and more than doubled the space I have so I don't have to rush to watch recorded items. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Great Product Wednesday, February 20, 2008
A Customer from Columbia, SC
This was an excellent purchase. I wanted an external hard drive to serve as a backup. With the Cavalry unit being a SATA drive, it is as fast as my primary internal hard drive. The USB interface is too slow in comparison, but provides options in restoring my data, if my desktop were to totally die. I had no problem installing the drive - just opened the case, plugged in the cable to the motherboard and powered up the PC. Vista saw the drive right away and life is good. At the price that Buy.com is selling this drive for, it can't be beat. Was this review helpful?
0 of 2 customers found this review helpful.
4 of 5 USB SLOW, FIREWIRE INSTRUCTIONS POOR Wednesday, February 20, 2008
A Customer from boca raton, fl
Very quiet and small enough to fit anywhere. Great product for the price. The instructions to install the firewire connection is almost useless. I don't even know what this is. Documentation, in general, is extremely limited, and doing backups is not documented either. Should come with backup software and documentation. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 So Far, So Good Monday, February 18, 2008
Brian from Atlanta, GA
Finding a need for more storage prompted me to retire my WD My Book 250 GB USB drive. I began the search several months in advance of when I knew I would want to purchase, as I simply didn't want to dive into a drive that was of inferior quality or performance. Doing the research led me to this drive, and I am overly satisfied with the results.
Copying my old drive to this new one did take quite a while, but I was forced to utilize USB 2.0 transfer speeds. Once I had all files moved, I transfered several disk image files (each > 22 GB) from an internal drive, and found the speed to be quite acceptable and well within what I expected.
I do have minor concerns (at this point)about the heat this drive puts off, as I have noticed the ca |
