Cavalry CAXM Series CAXM3701T0 Hard Drive - CAXM3701T0 - Includes eSATA cable and bridge!!
Cavalry 1TB Hard Drive - Dual Interface (USB 2.0 & eSATA) External Hard Drive

Got it as an external backup drive for several computers, one of them being a desktop. That's also where I installed the SATA (the connection kit only works for a desktop). The transfer speed is so lightning fast that I now keep all the videos of my little daughter there, which not only freed up lots of space but also sped up the editing programs, since they now run on two HDD in parallel. Great feature is the heat dispersion through the aluminum case instead of a noisy and energy consuming fan. I don't use Firewire but have seen drives with all three interfaces recently for about the same price. That could be the only reason to go for something else.
 
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This HDD works well with my HD-DVR (Scientific Atlanta 8300HD). So far everything works great. I have it about 50% full, ~100 recordings mostly High Def.
 
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My TiVo Series 3 HD DVR never even noticed that this eSata drive wasn't on the TiVo list of "officially supported" drives. Following the simple install tips on endgadget.com the drive was installed and up and running with 10 minutes, and it's been performing for several weeks with no problems encountered so far. The often-mentioned blue light can be dealt with by a piece of black electrical tape. The metal housing seems to adequately dissipate heat. Good value and good quality. Highly recommend
 
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eSata is fast and this drive was easy to configure with my motherboard. I just plugged it into a spare sata slot and had my bios detect it and it was like another harddrive. The OS detected it perfectly. I used a tool to compare read/write speeds and this one is blazing fast. I havent used this drive in USB mode yet. I use this drive for my audio work and its fast and quiet so far. No complains at all.
 
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I got one of these in Sept '08 when I upgraded to DirecTV HD. Works flawlessly with my DirecTV HD DVR. Note: when hooked up to the HD DVR this drive replaces the internal drive (internal drive is no longer recognized) so any programming on the internal drive will not be available. You don't lose the programs but they aren't available while using the external drive.
 
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I bought this for my DVR which HD had gone out and needed something that was portable and easy to use. Got this HD home took a couple of minutes to hook it up, rebooted my system and the HD came online no problems. Big bonus with the eSata cable that came with it since it is required to make the transfer of data easy and fast. USB cable is nice when plugging into PC. As others have noted only thing I don't like is the excessively bright blue LED on the front. I just taped over it.
 
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You just plug it in and there it is. Simple. Plus you get tons of space for such a great price. Back up your computer now!
 
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Have had the product for a month now and no problems. It works perfectly. The only complaint I had was that it was silver and not black like I expected it to be. No biggie though. I would reccomend this product to anyone who is a serious down loader.
 
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I am very happy to report that both of these units are working great! One was purchased for use with a Time Warner DVR. It was recognized and works perfectly. (It actually added to the 160 gigs internally and even kept the shows that I had already loaded to 99% capacity. Now reads 12%!) The other was for back up on PC. I wanted to use the supplied esata bridge for connection, but I do not have a port inside PC to install cable. I will probably have to buy a PCI Card with esata if I want more speed. (Using USB seems to be just fine though)YES the light is bright, but it does look cool... Black case is sharp too. KTK
 
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I purchased this drive for my DirecTv hd dvr and it works great. It was very simple to install by just connecting the eSata cable and resetting the dvr with the red button. One football game recorded in HD only takes up 1% of the total space.
 
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Nothing special, but working so far as advertised. Slow over USB... Works great as external drive for DirecTV DVR. I've seen much better deals since purchasing and wish I had gotten one with a Firewire interface. Alas.
 
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ESATA is Fast Fast Fast :) Got this external to store all my 360 .iso's onto it. Works like a charm. Takes under 2 minutes to put a whole game onto it (about 7gb). Talk about speed. The blue light is fairly bright but doesn't bother me as I don't leave the external on all the time. So far I haven't had any problems with the drive. I love the black case as it looks very sleek. The drive also stays very cool. I had it on for about 10 or so hours and the drive was cool to the touch. With my other cheap external it would be fairly warm even with just a few hours of being on. Very happy with my purchase!
 
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This is my first drive that supports eSATA. Installation was a breeze and I was very happy with its performance. The only thing I don't like is the giant LED in the front. I had to turn the drive facing back in my office so it would not distract me.
 
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When i received hard drive, it tranfer data are slow but it look very cool, that's why i brought it
 
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When i received hard drive, it tranfer data are slow but it look very cool, that's why i brought it
 
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I would have given the Cavalry 1TB eSATA drive 5 stars if the 1st unit had worked. (As it was I had a no-hassle buy.com RMA prepaid return shipping to get a replacement unit.) The 2nd unit worked fine. I can't judge performance on the unit (no measurement tools to rate whether it performs as well as the 300GB RAID1 mirrored SATA drives in my computer), however, it is eSATA and apparently faster than USB 2.0 and this is why I bought the unit. The big pluses on this unit are: 1. eSATA (and comes with a eSATA expansion slot port if your case doesn't have eSATA port already, I didn't need this) 2. 1TB storage (actually 1,000,000,000,000 bytes so it is really "only" 931GB) 3. Cost - you can't find anything comparable for such a low price 4. Quiet and cool 5. I called Cavalry's support partner (Bason Computer) toll free and got a live person who confirmed my trouble shooting steps indicated a DoA 1st unit; the call wasn't required by buy.com to do the RMA, but it gave me confidence in the availability of technical support.
 
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I was looking for a massive backup drive and this Cavalry drive fit the bill. Right out of the box, I hooked up the power supply, plugged in the USB, hit the power switch, and was up and running in seconds. No problems at all. I liked the metal case to keep the drive cool. But, so far, the drive runs very cool. The drive is very quiet. There is a very low hum, but I don't hear it at all since it's next to my desktop. Backup speeds have been quick. I've backed up three entire computers and still have tons of room left. The only knock I have is that the power cord and USB cord are fairly short. You must have this device right near an outlet. Otherwise, this is a great drive for a great price.
 
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Good value. Western Digital Hard drive inside. Doesn't run hot like others; only warm. Transfer rate is OK; but I'm using usb and only 256mb of Ram on my computer; wish I could accommodate the sata cable. I bought this based on the majority of good reviews and price. Blue light is bright; but don't let that dissuade you; mine sits on the floor with the light facing the wall. I recommend this product.
 
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It worked fine for about 2 weeks, then all of a sudden, dead... It tries to spin up a few times, then spins down. Completely unrecognized by either e-SATA or USB. Very disappointing. Now we have to see how the RMA process goes.
 
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I was looking for a 1tb drive to for backing up my computer using Norton Ghost. I plugged the drive into my system and it was instantly recognized. I changed the drive letter and configured norton ghost to back up to the drive. I've been running a daily backup for about 3 months with no problems. I marked the performance as a 4 simply because on a few instances the drive had to be reset (turned off and back on) when I booted up. I usually leave the system up and running, but on some occassions I shutdown the computer but leave the drives running. Its been under those conditions that the drive had to be reset. I have several other cavalry drives and have been fully satisfied with them, this drive has been wonderful. I would recommend it.
 
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Wow! This is the product for you. Hook up to the Time Warner HDTV or DVR Converter is so easy. 1st, remember to turn off all power to your Time Warner cable box. 2nd, just plug the 1 TB Hard Drive into a power plug and the eSATA plug on the back of the Time Warner Converter. Turn on your equipment, answer yes to reformatting. That's all! The Cavalry is almost silent running and offers the extra space needed to record your favorite digital programs. The blue light on the front of the Cavalry is pretty bright, but you will find that you can be pretty creative to move the Cavalry so that it does not shine in your eyes.
 
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Set up was plug and play as expected. I was able to make a copy of another external hard drive with no delays or errors. Haven't copied anything else on it, so for now...so far, so good.
 
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<strong>Pros</strong>: Plug and play on both a DirecTV HR20 and HR21 (made all power and cable connections and had it up and running within 10 minutes). Runs quiet (barely hear it accessing when recording). Runs relatively cool (enclosure is warm but not hot to the touch). <p><strong>Cons</strong>: Poorly packed (loose without much packing material resulting in the enclosure having a few scratches and dings), but to Buy.com's defense it appears to have been packaged by Cavalry themselves. Blue light is very bright, easily rectified by covering with some translucent tape.
 
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Installed two weeks ago without hassle as an external eSata backup drive. Backed up my photo and video files via Genie Backup Manager v8 no problem. Speed seems fine. Per manufacturer's advice, have left it on 95% of the time. Had one Windows XP Pro start-up glitch several days ago, but couldn't determine whether it was related to this drive. Restart worked fine and no problem since. My major concern now is long-term reliability with this much backup data in 'one basket'. We'll see....
 
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I've been using my drive for a month or so now and couldn't be happier with it. Setup was a complete no brainer. I hooked it up to a eSATA interface card from another vendor and it worked perfectly right out of the box. The drive is completely silent and compact. It's also very fast. But you would expect that with an eSATA drive. I treat like an internal drive for video capture and it works without missing a beat. I love it!
 
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Opening the box revealed a sturdy appearing external drive, power supply, USB cable, SATA cable, and a port to mount in an empty slot that connects to an existing SATA port on your motherboard. I installed the SATA port and activated the drive. On my machine running Windows XP I had to reboot for the drive to be recognized the first time; afterwards I could disconnect it and reconnect it and Windows would find it after a bit. Using the SATA interface the drive is blazingly fast. According to the bios POST on bootup it uses a Western Digital drive. I was able to copy large folders over very quickly. I also tried it out on another machine using the USB port. The speed drops to USB levels but otherwise everything is the same. The drive includes a small 'foot' if you want to stand it on the edge, and a blue LED on the front panel that indicates power on, and flashes red when the drive is being accessed. I don't have enough runtime yet to evaluate dependability, but so far the drive has exceeded my expectations and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for an external drive.
 
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Bought mine for $150 w/ free shipping. It did not come in a retail box. Everything was included, eSATA card, cables, etc. Works BEAUTIFULLY on my Time Warner Cable HD DVR box, very easy install using included eSATA cable. Identical ease and performance of the Cavalry eSATA 2.0/USB 500 GB that I replaced (for a size upgrade!). +about 140-160 hours of HD storage!! No complaints on playback performance. The light is very bright, that is the only con.
 
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Based on the low price & excellent reviews, I took a stab at this item even though I've never purchased anything from Cavalry. (But another reviewer said the guts was a WD drive.) I used the included eSATA cable to connect it to my Scientific-Atlanta Explorer 8300HD DVR & now I've got 1TB of storage space! (I have Comporium Cable.) The interface between the DVR & drive is a little slower than the internal drive; leading to a slight delay when starting or stopping a recorded program, but otherwise, it works great. I'll probably purchase another one but for my desktop when it goes on sale again.
 
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Worked flawlessly right out of the box. Easy to use. I really like it so far. The Iomega drive I had started doing weird things. This one is nice. The blue light doesn't bother me.
 
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I plugged this 1TB hard drive to the e-Sata port of my Cox 8240HD DVR. Before connecting the hard drive, my DVR capacity was 96% full. After plugging this one, it went down to a sweet 11%. Connection was a blast. Power off the DVR, plug in the hard disk, power it up, then power up the DVR. Takesa about 3-5 minute to boot the dvr and then it states that connected hard disk is compatible and needs formatting, once okayed, it does a quick format of some sort as it only takes about 5-10 seconds. Next it shows that the hard drive is ready to use. Done. Since then I have been recording HD programs so far no issue, it has the same performance as the internal hard drive, and one will not feel any performance delta or glitch with it. But its been only 2 weeks. Keep that in mind though. The price that i got from buy.com was great. There are only few store actually carry this drive anyway. Free shipping was fast as usual. I never had any issue with buy.com yet. These guys are good and very reliabale. To me online electronics shopping is alwyas either buy.com or newegg.
 
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Extremely easy to use, a great price for 1TB.
 
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I bought this for $149 I think. It was a great deal and it was the best I'd seen at that price. Setup was easy b/c the drive is already formatted with NTFS so that means you just plug it up to a Windows machine and you are off and running. I have only connected it using USB so far but I plan to connect it at home using the eSATA bridge that is included. It runs very quiet and very cool. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for some extra HD space.
 
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Just got the product, everything is in place, and extremely easy to set up. Some times makes noise when I search for files on the disk, but mostly silent. I just could not get 3.0Gbps transfer speed even when I use eSATA interface. My desktop is pretty new, and has an extra eSATA slot available, and I was able to hook to that slot. I'm giving 4 out of 5 as I couldn't get 3.0 GBPS. Everything else is excellent! By the way, the blue light on the front case is very bright! If I have this in my bed room, I would not need any other bed light :) For the new buyers, don't get cheated by 5 out of 5 ratings... I just figured, when I was giving my rating, when you give 4 star rating for performance, and 5 star rating for ease of use, it shows as 5 out of 5 as the ... nice marketing technique!
 
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Attached it to my scientific atlantic HD cablebox/dvr. Memory had been nearly filled to capacity. After connecting the drive it showed memory used:10% and the recordings on the DVR itself were still available. Downside:Blue light on front is very bright. 1 TB for one fifty is a bargain, now it's two hundred, I'll wait for it to go on sale again and buy another.
 
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I bought this unit to expand capacity on my Directv HR-20 & I must say it's worked great & was a snap to hook up & run. I'd definitely recommend this drive!
 
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This is by far the best deal I found on Buy.com. The drive is fast in speed. Transferring files through eSata is alot faster than I expected and this unit comes with the eSata bridge! I was sceptic at first because I never heard of Cavalry before. However, some techs and I discovered that Cavalry is really Western Digital's sister company and my computer even detects the drive as WD. Bang for the buck, so buy it now!
 
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Installed the SATA and hooked up to the drive. Turned pc and the drive on, it was regconized right away. I dont check the transfered speed but I transfered my movies to that drive took less than 5 mins for about 8 gig files...Quiet, blue light pretty cool.
 
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When I got the drive and open the box, I was suprised how compact it was compared to 500GB Western Digital"My Book" or even 750GB 3.5 "My Book". The thickness was 1/2 of the size of My Book. It easy to set up. Just plug it in to the USB port. If you have Window Vista or XP, it will load the driver for you. The feature I like the best is the "on/off" switch. which most of the USB drive do not have. The other cool feature is when it's on the light is blue and when it's writing, it's flash red/blue to let you known when it's writing and turn blue when it finish. It's fast and well made and plenty of storage for only $149.99 (I bought it when it was $159.00). Of all the USB drive I owned, this is my most favorite.
 
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I bought this to upgrade my hr21 dvr. Simply plug in and double the storage space. Great deal at the price I paid. Shipping was a little slower than normal but not bad.
 
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I bought this as an external hard drive expansion for my Directv HR20 based on reviews. Works like a charm. Turned the receiver and hard drive off, plugged in the hard drive to the esata slot and turned everything back on. It came right up with no indication that a new hard drive was being used except it was empty of course , with LOTS of room. I have had it for a week and no issues whatsoever, except I had to reprogram my DVR to a 30 second skip instead of the 30 second slip it had reverted to. Other than that- fast, smooth and seamless expansion
 
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Out of the box, I was surprised at its weight - The aluminum enclosure makes this drive feel solid. Since there's no fan - there's no noise - the aluminum enclosure makes it as quiet as a flash drive. Installation was simple and effortless - plug & play. I'm using USB connection for data backup and so far it works great. I've only been using for a few days but it exceeds my expectations. FYI - the LED it BRIGHT (I had to turn it sideways so it wouldn't light up my desk at night) and I bought on sale. I will buy another when it goes on sale again.
 
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Worked great with my HR21. Took 5 minutes to hook up and reboot. The blue light on the front is not as bright as others have said. The HR21's blue lights are 5 times brighter.
 
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I like the special email sales with promo from Buy.com. I only buy then. WD drive inside.
 
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Once you experience how much faster esata is than USB 2.0 you can't go back. This drive works like a champ. Very quiet, and runs pretty cool. I'm not getting a true 3gb/s, but that probably has more to do with my expresscard interface to my laptop.
 
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The drive is quiet and does not run hot. This jumbo HD works just perfectly with my DirecTV HR21 HD DVR. To set up, simply 1) Unplug DVR. 2) Connect eSATA cable 3) Turn on new drive. 4) Plug DVR back in 5) Turn on the DVR and wait for reboot. Works like a charm, with tons of capacity.
 
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Plugged this into the SATA port on the back of our HR21 DirectTV HD DVR. Turned on both units and the DVR now has more than three times the record space. No problems whatsoever and the DVR works exactly the same way. The unit runs slightly warm to the touch and is almost entirely silent. The LED is no brighter than the lights on the TV or DVR. The unit feels well-built. I can easily recommend it. The rebate form was draconian.
 
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I kept running out of space on my DVR, when recording shows, especially if I went out of town and had it set to record HD sporting events or rerun marathons. Comcast said it would not work, but I tried it anyway. Within minutes, I increased my storage capacity 11 fold, just in time for the Olympics!!!! All for less than $200. Thank you Buy.com.
 
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Satisfied with product. Works as said. Received product with slight esthetic damage and appeared to have been opened previously. Having some issues with TV Schedule/programming. It can't view beyond 24 hrs. Otherwise, satisfying purchase.
 
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I have a DirectTV HD DVR HR21 and I have purchased several other ESATA drives and nothing worked but this drive works perfectly. I just turned everything off. Connected the drive via ESATA using the cable the drive came with. Turned ON the drive and then hit the reset button on the DVR. I was done. It saw the drive installed the DVR software and now I have a huge storage for all the movies and shows I could imagine. The drive is quiet and cool to the touch. I would suggest you put a piece of black electrical tape over the blue light on the front if you want your entertainment center to be dark.
 
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The drive was easy to plug in and begin using immediately. Shipped very quickly, also. Thanks.
 
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Quiet, reliable so far, and eSATA is mad fast. I backed up 1 TB in just a few hours, insane!
 
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