Cavalry CADA002SA2-B Hard Drive Array - CADA002SA2-B
Cavalry 2TB CADA USB/eSATA 2-bay RAID Disk Array for PC

Depending on what you want the drive to be, it either is, or is not, pre-configured. If you want a 2TB hard drive (as it is advertised to be) in Raid 0 (Striping) than everything is setup for you out of the box. If you want anything else, than you need to reconfigure the device to that desired setup and you may need to wait for everything to mirror over. Device must use the Steelvine software for management (get it from the website, not the cd) and if you want to use eSATA your port must support port multipliers. If you don't have an eSATA port than i would suggest getting a 2port PCIe x1 card from somewhere that has the Silicon Image Sil3132 for about $25. Fan is a bit noisy but livable if you have any fan noise from your computers. Uses Western Digital Green Power Drives but it also worked with Seagate 400GB Drives and WD 2TB drives when i tried them. Steelvine software does allow for error warnings via email for temp alerts and drive failure/rebuild/verify with custom messages allowed. Also allows you to individually update the bios for each enclosure if you have more than one attached to the host computer which is nice. Can also set passwords within the SV software to prevent changing anything without permission (if you have "tinkerers'). USB 2.0 transfer was on par with what i expected (25-30MB/s) eSATA was 60-65MB/s through a rosewill 2 port PCIe x1 SilImage 3132 card. Enclosure comes apart with four screws and drives are easy to remove and install once the sleeve is removed.
 
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Ignore the pre-configured statement. This is not exactly plug-n-play. As another reviewer stated, plan a waiting a few hours for the array to rebuild before use. Other than that, it's great. I'm using it in RAID 1 for nightly backups with Novosofts' Handy Backup (best backup software anywhere) and it's holding everything like it should.
 
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Ignore the pre-configured statement. This is not exactly plug-n-play. As another reviewer stated, plan a waiting a few hours for the array to rebuild before use. Other than that, it's great. I'm using it in RAID 1 for nightly backups with Novosofts' Handy Backup (best backup software anywhere) and it's holding everything like it should.
 
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I ordered two of these, about a week apart. The first one arrived on time and works flawlessly. A little noisy, but performance is excellent. The 2nd unit arrived as promised, but I had to return it. One of the hard drives did not work. It will be at least a week before I receive the replacement....so only time will tell.
 
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The box came, cables got hooked up, booted up the box. Then an annoying and persistent buzzer-like noise came from the box which didn't stop until I turned it off. I then read the instructions more carefully and decided the software installation was necessary. When that was done, the box booted up finally without the noise. BUT. The software detected that 1 of the 2 drives needed rebuilding, with the remaining drive apparently in RAID1 (SAFE) configuration instead of the stated Spanning (BIG). So now I'm the 3+ hour process of the software rebuilding the remaining drive.(although this duration might have been reduced if I had a USB 2.0 card on my computer) As for performance and stability... well, I'll have to see.
 
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