Cavalry CAXE Series Hard Drive - CAXE37500
Cavalry 500GB Hard Drive - Dual Interface (USB 2.0 & eSATA) External Hard Drive

Works great! Great price for a great drive. Very easy to use. Very quiet, and dissipates heat very well. The only thing that I would change about it is the light to indicate that it is on. It is very bright.
 
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This is a great external drive. Easy to set up. Just plug in and recognize by my windows XP PRO. Both USB and eSATA work fine. I like it with both connections, so different computers can access it. Takes up small space. I turn it aound to access both connectors constantly, so the blue light won't bother me. I tested the drive's transfer rate has a maximum 79.6 MB/s. Good enough for the price and my use. My drive is Western Digital WD5000AAVS. Pretty quiet, almost undetectable noise. I use it all day and the case is warm enough but not hot. I read a review about formatting the drive to improve performance. I tried it and the performance did improved. I waited a while for the price to drop low enough without rebate. So, I don't have to worry about rebate. I have it for a month, so far, I have no problem at all.
 
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I was a little skeptical because i had never heard about this brand before. I read lots of reviews online and decided to get it. I ended up paying 85 bucks for it. Pretty inexpensive for 500 gigs. Plus it was not only usb 2.0 but e-sata. Transfer speeds for usb 2.0 are around 25-30 mb/s but the e-sata is about 70-75 mb/s. Great if you move large files back and forth. Cavalry's customer service could also not be better. I could not get the e-sata connection to work so i emailed Cavalry. Within two hours i got a response. All i had to do was go to the device manager and search for new hardware. That solved the problem instantly. Drive comes with the power cable, usb 2.0 cable, e-sata cable, e-sata bracket for your computer and a vertical stand. The bracket has one e-sata port and a cable that runs to an empty sata port on your motherboard. If you dont have one you will not be able to use it. I have two built in to my motherboard so i did not even use the bracket. Overall i am very happy with my purchase and would definitely purchase another Cavalry product.
 
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This is the second one I have purchased. Liked the first so well I got another.
 
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received promplty and in good condtion. works like it should and was a great price.
 
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I found that this drive is really good for my needs however I have not been able to get the esata connection to work. I have used the connections hard-wired on my motherboard, and the header that came with the drive that attaches directly to the motherboard. The drive came with a cable to go from the header to the drive and this very well could be faulty but I am perfectly satisfied with the USB connection. I mean, for 90 bucks I have a 500GB external drive that I can frequently back up my windows with. I haven't tried to get a return because, like I said, eSata is not that important to me.
 
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I was thinking of buying an internal hard drive because the speed to backup your files, movies, etc., is much faster. When I saw this product online I thought well the speed isn't too bad, but the transfer rate using eSATA is not as fast as described on the specs. Otherewise, it was easy to install, no issues so far.
 
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For those of you who have Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD DVR cable boxes, this drive should work great to expand your recording space. In South Florida, with Comcast Cable, the 8300HD's have SARA software (vs. Passport software), and this drive works just fine. I tried other drives first, such as the Seagate FreeAgent Pro, and those did not work. This drive works great an increased my storage space by about 333% !!! I went from having the internal drive being 100% full to now having only 22% of the storage space used, once I connected this drive. And at this price ($89.95 shipped), it's hard to beat as a cheap, easy way to add storage space to your 8300HD dvr. Before, I could only record a few hours of HD programming, maybe 15 hours total (that's only a few movies and a few 1 hour prime-time TV shows). I used to have to delete programs before I had a chance to watch them. How, I can record close to 100 hours of HD, which means that I can record stuff without having to worry about space for a long time.
 
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Drive works great. Connection to computer was easy using USB. Backing up large amounts of data didn't happen too quickly, but fast enough through a USB connection. I haven't tried the eSATA connection yet, but would expect more speed using it. Drive is housed in a sturdy metal case and I haven't noticed any excessive heat being generated. Overall, I'm happy with the purchase and would recommend this drive to others.
 
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While this is a great drive, the first one came D.O.A. By the time I returned it and they sent me a new one(very slow), their rebates expired. I've been fighting them for 3 months now trying to get my rebates! This experience has been worse than trying to get a Symantec rebate, and I thought they were the worst!
 
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Sorry about the headline; I always wanted to say that! A true 5 star product. It quietly does it's job in the background without any interference. Truly "plug & play" with Apple computers. What more can I say?
 
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Installed easily (using provided esata connection). Instantly recognized and available. Fast and quiet. Nice price. Seems to have Western Digital guts.
 
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I have only had it for a week or so, and have not yet upgraded my computer to run it with the eSATA connection (USB for now), but my first impressions are all positive. It is very quiet, fast, doesn't get hot, and works perfectly with Windows XP - I especially like the very fast searches, of which I have been doing quite a few (with 500GB it is easy to forget what (& where) I have backed up). I had read many reviews that made me pause a while before purchasing (more than a few said they had issues with long term reliability), so if anything changes I'll try to send a new review, but right now I'm very happy with it.
 
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I purchased two of these products, one for me and my Dad, an early Fathers Day present. With the eSATA connections we both added over 66% more recordable drive space on our Cablevision supplied Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD DVRs. It was plug and play with simple format and we were good to go. No more deleting programs to make room for new ones. We have plenty of space.
 
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I've had the unit for a couple of weeks - using it with Win 2K Pro and XP machines without problems or need to install drivers (good thing because there's essentially no documentation shipped with the product). I found the device to be very quiet and speedy compared to other USB drives.
 
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Overall the drive works great and is quiet. Everything perform as expected of an external hard drive. However, the metal enclosure is constantly hot while its on and the blue light is very bright. To dim the light, I taped some electrical tape over the LED light.
 
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I just got this drive yesterday. Shiping was wonderful. Ordered it on 4/29 and it arrived on 5/1. I'm useing it to increase my storage space for my HD DVR. Love the fact that it came with a external eSATA cable. My DVR had no problem recognizing it. Runs a little on the warm side, and I hate the BIG BLUE LIGHT. It will have to stay on at all times, so I'm hopeing it will hold up to continuous use.
 
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Just got item 2 weeks ago, sturdy metal case, takes up small desk space, even came w/ eSata card and cable!!
 
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This drive is all I could have hoped for: fast, quiet, quality construction, great price. My only complaint is that the blue LED light is always on, and it's bright enough to light up my whole house!
 
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This is the second Cavalry drive I have purchased, and I REALLY like them. But if you think you are getting a deal, think twice about the rebate. MIR411 handles rebates for these drives, and both times my experience with them has been less than pleasant. The first time the rebate was late. (Note that you are expected to wait 8-10 weeks from the last possible date that ANYONE is allowed to mail in their rebate, not from when YOU mail it in.) The second time I couldn't even register for the rebate because the MIR411 website kept saying my serial number was invalid. (This did finally get resolved, after days of effort and getting BUY.COM involved.)
 
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This drive failed within a week! When I shipped the drive back to them for a replacement, they never got back to me. 3 months later they tell me the replacement was sent and was lost in the mail. This is by far the worst buying experience ever. Low quality product and terrible customer service! If you don't want to throw money away, I suggest you steer far away from buying any of their products.
 
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Works perfectly. Plug & play, I use it for backups and file storage. I've used both USB and eSata, and they work flawlessly. For those worried about this not being a 'name brand' drive, mine has a Western Digital HDD drive inside (WD-WCASU0758397). You can't go wrong with this drive. It is quiet, fast, and stylish as well. Supports ATA/Atapi=8 SATA II standard. HDTune 2.53 tested (via eSata conection) : Min Xfer rate: 37.3 MB/sec; Max 78.4 MB/sec; Avg 63.4 MB/sec; Access time 14.9 sec; burst rate 97.6 MB/sec
 
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Works perfectly. Plug & play, I use it for backups and file storage. I've used both USB and eSata, and they work flawlessly. For those worried about this not being a 'name brand' drive, mine has a Winchester HDD drive inside. You can't go wrong with this drive. It is quiet, fast, and stylish as well.
 
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The Good: Comes with everything you need to have an eSATA drive. Runs really fast at SATA II speeds (3.0Gb/s). Pre-formatted to NTFS for easy install. The Bad: Not a name-brand Hard Disk. Perhaps will present reliability issues in the future. The Bottom-line: A great product for the price that you pay for it.
 
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It is cheap and works well till now. Low noise during usage and generates little heat too. The only thing I don't like is the process of rebate. You send rebate forms now, and you need to confirm your information 3 months later. The company just wants you to forget confirming and don't give you the rebate.
 
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I only have this unit aprox. 3 weeks. It was purchased as additional storage for my optimum DVR. The setup was simple and the unit has been running non-stop since setup. It feels cool to the touch and I've had no problems so far. regarding the rebate, when I purchase the item I downloaded the rebate form to my desk top for processing upon receipt of the unit. The pdf will not open anymore and the link disappeared from the web site.
 
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Died within a year. Now lets see if the warranty replacement system works.
 
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Came right up out of the box on XP.
 
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it sounds crackling like old/bad HDD when it read or write. i got my unit with some scratches and without any box..and it made me upset little. at present its working well and i hope that, in future too it will be working well.. price is cheaper then others, with same feature.
 
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The drive works fine. I had for 6 months. Only thing that concerns me is.....do I need to back-up the "back-ups"? My thinking is that if the stuff on the drive is unreplaceable, take your time and make it permanent so that you won't be sorry. If you know of better drives give us the info....thanks
 
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The drive runs so hot that it is best handled with gloves. I placed it in front of a fan to keep it cool. But no matter, after a month it started crashing. Windows tools could not recover the data. Now I have to return it but not before I buy another brand drive: I cannot afford the data loss and time lost to recovery. I wish I had read the other reviews first.
 
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I have a Cavalry 500 GB external drive, which works fine, just as it should. My only dissatisfaction with the drive is that the company refused to honor their rebate offer. My situation was complicated in that the initial drive I received died after about an hour of use--caveat emptor!--but the second drive has worked fine since I received it. They refused, however, to send me my rebate, despite hours wasted in correspondence and telephone calls. I would not do business with this company again, regardless of how attractive their product. There are other drives, equally good, for roughly the same price.
 
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Drive works perfectly fine, been running 24/7 for a few months & received the rebate recently. Fast speeds with eSATA. Mine has a Western Digital WD5000AAJS in it. It costs about the same as the oem drive it uses, so the enclosure is a bonus. I actually use this as my boot drive much of the time & have several additional partitions on it for documents, programs & pagefile etc. I've also been using it as a server drive running my mail server & websites from it, so it is always on & seems to be ok temperature wise, although it is a little hotter than my internal drives. This drive is usually right at 41-42 degrees where my internal drives usually vary from about 25-31 degrees or so. I recently got the CAXM37500 as well (it runs a few degrees cooler, about 38-39 degrees). It's very similar to this except the enclosure is black (does not include foot stand) & the drive is a Western Digital WD5000AAVS, which seems to be a special bulk packaging drive for resellers. It works about the same & has the same specs (3.0Gb/s 7200RPM 8MB cache), though they bench slightly different from one another. The CAXE37500 has slightly higher sustained transfer rate with lower burst speed, while the CAXM37500 has exactly the opposite, slightly lower sustained transfer rate with higher burst speed. To one of the other reviewers about the product not including rebate information, generally online rebates have a link with the product near the top of the product's page & must be downloaded seperately, the actual item rarely if ever (I've never encountered one & have done dozens of online rebates) includes any rebate forms or rebate info.
 
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Waiting over 8 months for my mail-in rebate. Cannot contact anyone in the company for an explanation. Calculate your value without including any expected rebate.
 
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This is my second Cavalry 500GB external HDD, but the first of this model. It worked like a charm until it stoped. I archived all my family home video footage, transfered from my mini DV camcorder, and was working on it when it stopped being recognized. I have tried on different computers, with either USB or eSATA, but no way to regain access to the drive. Both the interface (SATA to USB/eSATA) seems dead, and the Master Boot Record failed. No cheap recovery possible. WHAT A FRUSTRATION!!!
 
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After having used USB drives for many years, nothing beats the performance of an external drive with eSATA capabilities. The price, quality and performance of this product blew my mind. Using the eSATA interface with this drive is even faster than my internal SATA drive and still has the flexibility of USB to be moved around via USB to my other computers.
 
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Bought as a Christmas present for my son's computer. He got it up and running without my assistance. He loves it.
 
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Got this for $100, shipped out right away. Took it out of the box and plugged it in and it works amazingly. Tons of space, very easy to use, relatively lightweight, and doesn't take up that much room on my desk. Couldn't ask for an easier, and so far very reliable external hard drive
 
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This is my first external drive, and it was easy to install the eSATA port on my computer to get the faster connection to the drive. Because I keep my computer on, this external hard drive has also been on all the time. The fan works beautifully to keep the drive safe. I've used 2 types of backup to save backups of my important files on the external drive, and have also copied most of my documents directly to the drive. The transfer is quick with the eSATA connection.
 
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This Cavalry 500GB 7200RPM USB 2.0 & eSATA Dual Interface External Hard Drive - CAXE37500 is a great/excellent external hard drive. The hard drive worked right away and was plug-n-play.
 
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I have compared other eSATA drives available at the time of purchase (Oct 2007). They either cost much more, have a poor design or did not include the eSATA cable and connectors. I prefers compact and standard rectangular design which is as close to the internal drive as possible. Most external drives, no matter what brand, have the internal drives made by one of the HD manufactures like Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi, Samsung or Fujitsu. In my unit, the HD made by Western Digital. At the time I bought this, it cost less than same capacity SATA OEM internal drive available anywhere. So buying this unit is a no brainer for me. If I want to, I can remove the drive and use it as an internal SATA. At first, I was undecide whether to buy this or a similar model (CAXM37500) from CAVALRY because the other model have numerous good reviews but this model has none. But I am glad I did purchase this model because according to reviewers of the other model, the CAXM37500 does not allow plug and play and had to be switch on before booting up the PC. This model, CAXE37500 can be switch on and off, or plug and unplug while in windows. It works like an external USB drive. You can also use the USB connection on a PC that does not have the eSATA connector. If you connect this drive via eSATA and have it optimized for performance using cache, make sure that you 'Safetly Remove Hardward' first. But if you want to use it like a USB flash drive, make sure to set it to 'Optimize for qick removal'. You can change this at the Policies Tab of the drive in the Windows Device Manager. I would seriously consider buying another of this drive, probably one with a higher capacity.
 
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I'm transferring data using the e-Sata port at 5-6 times USB speed or more. Great product!
 
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This was less than 100 bucks after rebate and it was well worth it. The drive works flawlessly and is very fast. I use it as an external drive for my Scientific Atlanta DVR and it just simply works and works well. <br /> <br /> There is no built in fan, but the aluminum case seems to do a fine job of dissipating the heat. At least it seems that way, since the case gets fairly warm. <br /> <br /> The blue LED is bright. That's probably my biggest gripe. It illuminates the entire room in the dark. The blue is on constantly with quick flashes of red when the drive is being accessed. I suppose the enclosure could be taken apart to disconnect the blue LED. For me, I just turn the drive sideways so that the LED shines into the side of the cable box or sidewall of the cabinet. No big deal.
 
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This item serves the purpose of expanding the storage capability for your DVR but, for whatever reason, I've needed to reboot it and my DVR a handful of times to actually play the stored recording. It was priced reasonably, although no information was included to obtain the $20 rebate.
 
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I majorly use Macs so I reformarted the drive to FAT32 right away. And then it works fine for both Macs and PCs via USB2. Then I installed the eSATA to a PCI SATA card in my old G4, and it works great too! The only thing is if I choose to use eSATA interface for the fast speed, the HD has to be turned on before booting, and it will be treated as an internal HD for Mac OSX.
 
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The eSATA interface card was easy to install and the speed is incredible. I've had several external hard drives and this one is by far the fastest. I haven't tried the USB 2.0 interface, but you can't beat the speed of eSATA. It's reliable, fast and inexpensive. If I were getting another external hard drive, this is the one I'd get.
 
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