Cavalry CAXM Hard Drive - CAXM37500 - Includes SATA to eSATA Adapter Cable
Cavalry 500GB Hard Drive - Dual Interface (USB 2.0 & eSATA) External Hard Drive

I have had two of these now. The first failed in a few weeks and was replaced under warranty. The second one lasted several months until it would no longer transfer data with the ESATA interface. At first I thought the drive had died again, but WD Data Lifeguard showed a functional drive. I switched to the USB cable and the drive seems to function as it should. I'd never trust this brand again. The things are meant for storage and backup. If you can't trust that it won't let you down, what good is it?
 
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Have only had a few weeks at this point, but everything has gone perfectly from the order to receiving to setup and use ... bought for the eSata interface and based on reviews of 5 competing HDs where the Cavalry far and away lead the pack ... it is running great and serving my needs -- very satisfied!
 
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Works as advertised. I've used it for about 3 months and it's not had any hickups. Big old bright light on the front lets you know its on.
 
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Have not tested the ESATA interface but USB works as you'd expect - no speed or compatibility issues. Blue light on front of unit is a bit garish but does what it's supposed to do. Both drive and power supply run cooler than any external drive I've ever used before.
 
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Worked right out of the box following the instructions... Tied into SATA on Dell Dimension 8400. Per Acronis, FULL 80G backup was 27 minutes. Through USB, same (FULL 80G) backup is 40 minutes. Very quiet. Yes, the blue/red light does illuminate an entire room - minor annoyance. FWIW - I am done purchasing any product with rebates managed by MIR411. NewEgg/Buy - doesn't matter. They are purposely making the process cumbersome/difficult so they can reject your legitimate rebate claim. To get a $15 rebate here are the steps one must complete: • Only AFTER receipt of product, register online for a ClaimID • ClaimID must be on the submission ENVELOPE (no details as to where) • Duplicate all information entered ONLINE on the rebate form • Standard UPC/Serial Number/Receipt requirements... • Send in (via snail mail) standard rebate form + required docs • Rebate must be ONLINE VERIFIED between 10/12/08 and 11/09/08 (failure to verify makes your rebate null/void) The great thing is that it says to "allow eight weeks from the postmark end date (08/31/08) to receive your rebate" So - for the product I purchased in July 2008, if everything is properly submitted, and I remember to Online Verify in October, I should get a rebate in November 2008.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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Not only the dirve at an excellent price, but also the SATA cables and hardware necessary to provide an external SATA connection on a desktop PC. A great deal.
 
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Product was delivered on time. I had several years of photos on PC's harddrive, now with the external drive all photos have been backed up. Very fast, e-sata hook up was no problem.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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It doesn't come with any "easy" software, but it is a great price and quite fast.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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 case to be substantially warmer to the touch than I would have thought it should be. Obviously, I will be monitoring this in the coming months. I may be forced to move the drive outside of my cabinet and set it on the open desktop. Certainly not an issue, but something to bear in mind if you are space-challenged. The summary for this review is this; If you need an excellent drive for varied purposes, you could do far worse than this drive. For the cost, it is an excellent value. If you are expecting a quality drive with solid performance, then you won't be blown away... If you expect anything less, you'll be forced to buy a new pair of socks, as your current pair will be blown off. In a word, this little baby just works.
 
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I bought this drive to use for system backups and photo storage. It is connected using the provided eSATA adapter. Installation was very easy on a Dell E510. The drive runs very quiet and seems to also be very cool. I have the drive on my desktop and it is quieter than the internal drive in the PC under my desk.
 
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This drive replaced a Seagate one-touch drive that failed. It is extremely quiet and the SATA interface is as fast as my internal drive. Why would anyone use USB when this is available? The SATA hookup was straightforward although my BIOS required me to turn on the SATA connector. My Dell had four SATA connectors on the motherboard of which one was being used by the internal hard drive. I would highly recommend this solution over a USB interface. You can still unplug the drive and use the USB interface on another computer if you wanted to transfer or backup more files. Highly recommend!
 
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It wasn't as fast as I would have thought it to be, but still much better than USB2. But the noise level is practically none, which is great because I do keep this running near the bed room. The only issue I have is that the package does not include the stand for holding the drive on it's side, which I would have preferred.
 
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I thought this might plug into my Dish Network DVR to add space but it doesn't. The instructions for hooking up the eSATA kit to the motherboard of a PC could have been clearer. I hooked it up to my USB port on my laptop and no configuration was required. So it works well as a data warehouse for my laptop. I have had it 1 week. Decent price. $120
 
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The eSATA does not work and the rebate is praud.
 
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It's quiet and the performance is also good.
 
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I really enjoy this product. Quite and high speed. It is worth of buying.
 
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This drive works great. I use the eSATA interface and haven't had any issues. Mine has a Western Digital HD inside also.
 
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This product worked very well for me as a backup for my main computer and for video and photo editing from July 2007 until January 1, 2008. Then when I turned it on, I received a "the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable" error. Very disappointing as I had recently run out of space for backing up my video editing elsewhere. Have lost quite a bit of time invested.
 
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I bought this HD with one sole purpose in mind - using it for extra storage for my Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR cable box. With the kit that buy.com sells, it couldn't be easier to connect and set up - just plug one end of the black SATA cable into the drive, and the other into the SATA port on the box. Boot up the drive, then boot up the cable box and the drive instantly recognized that the drive was connected. Select 'yes' when the cable box asks you if you'd like to format the drive and you're set. I now have 660gb of drive space to record my shows on! I gave 'ease of use' a rating of 4 because of one little snag - I waited what seemed like about half an hour and I never got a confirmation message that the drive was formatted and ready to use. I looked in my 'recording space' and I still had the default amount. It wasn't until I powered the drive off and on again did I then get an odd message telling me I shouldn't have done that. However when I looked in my 'recording space' panel again, I now had the extra room. Weird, but it worked!
 
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You get what you pay for. I now know why this model was so cheap. It froze in the middle of a transfer the second time I used it, and now it's dead. When I turn it on, you can hear it spinning, and then it shuts itself off within 5 seconds of turning it on. Now I need to buy another back-up drive. ;-(
 
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very quiet hard drive, but in specs it says 500 gb, when connected actually only 465 gb is available. why lie in specs? thinking of returning or get a credit for misinformation.
 
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why lie about size? it says in specs that it is 500gb, actually it is 465gb, where are the rest 35 gb. Why lie? besides that, good drive - very quiet.
 
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I don't have any complain with regards to this external HDD. Those of you wondering what may be inside, it has a WD 500 GB HDD. Pretty well built
 
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This is my third one. Needless to say I am very pleased with the product. Mine have all had Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATA drives with 16MB buffers. I have always had great service from the Western Digital drives so I am pleased to get such great pricing on these drives. I have also purchased 5 of the Calvary 500 GB USB external drives and they also have had the WD 500 GB SATA drive. Some of these were priced much less than the internal WD drive. Amazing. One last note is that it is a quiet drive which is nice as I often have more than one connected.
 
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So far I'm happy with this drive. I was glad to see it had a Western Digital harddrive inside. Everything connected okay although instructions were a little vague. The case was heavier, slimmer and more solid than I expected. I recently benchmarked the drive with the ESATA connection and got average speeds that were 30% higher than my IDE internal harddrives. My initial impression is very good.
 
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I bought this for storage expansion for my Time Warner HD DVR (SA 8300). I had spent months looking for an easy solution for the demanding task of expanding the memory for this DVR. The requirements, as far as I could tell, were quite high tech and required building an external eSATA drive and making sure you had the latest spec cable, etc. Even at that point it seemed like the chances for my success would be pretty shaky, expensive, annoying, etc. When I saw this on buy.com for this cheap I went ahead and pulled the trigger, because everything was already built, hopefully would be no hassle. Well, after plugging this sucker in and doing a couple quick searches on the avs forums, I had added about 75-90 hours of HD recording time to my DVR. I works bloody brilliantly! I live in Cincy, OH for the record. Highly recommended, I've had this thing running nonstop off my DVR for months now without a hitch. I now have space to archive some classic HD films and keep up on my weekly shows. Niiiice!
 
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I told my sister to buy this drive so she could backup her photos. She's technologically inept and never "installed it" not realizing that all she had to do was plug it into the USB port. By the time she was able to first use it, it turned out that the drive was defective and wasn't able to be detected by the PC. We emailed Calvary's tech support and they were EXTREMELY POLITE and helpful. They were patronizing like most techs are to pc noobs. They gave her instructions to ship the drive back and they sent her a brand new drive. The new drive works great! About the drive: *****PROS***** -slim form factor -a/c adapter is the SMALL KIND, about 1"x1.5"x3", not the usual brick that you have to lug around -doesn't get hot when in use for a long time, it does get warm tho -comes w/esata port!! let's see other companies do this! *****CONS***** -the design could be a more elegant. the company should send their product designer on a field trip to MOMA in NYC before they update the design on this thing. if this drive had a gorgeous design, it would be THE PERFECT PRODUCT. Well, there ya go, great performance, extra hardware and awesome warranty support...what are you waiting for?
 
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I've had it for three months, always on, and nightly backups. Not a singl problem. Quiet, and looks good.
 
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This drive is fast, cheap, and works with my eSata. I tried another brand initially that didn't work with eSata but this one connected immediately and works like a champ. I'd buy it again since I have absolutely no complaints with it (and it doesn't take up much space).
 
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The drive came with everything one could need (USB cable, eSATA cable, bracket with internal SATA cable, etc.), unlike other drives. It runs very fast (faster than the drive in my notebook) and is quiet. There is a small fan on the unit but a switch is provided so you can turn the fan on or off. The power button is a real power button (not a software button) so if the unit was on when power goes off, it will be back on when power comes back on (unlike other drives which will be off when power comes back on). I have now bought 4 of these units (for different machines) and haven't had a problem with any of them. eSATA is much faster than USB2 or IEEE1394b. The price was great too.
 
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I got this specifically for my DirecTV HR20 HD DVR, and it was easy plug and play and works perfect! Now I have doubled the original capacity to 100 hours of HD recording! This drive comes with everything you need to be up and running in minutes. Mine came with a Western Digital drive inside. The fan is a bit noisy, but you can turn it off when in the vertical position and it stays cool enough.
 
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Using the external eSATA enterface the and disk works just great. No issues. Did have to wait four weeks while the item was on backorder. The backorder was not shown on buy.com when ordered. Its been three months, still haven't received the rebate.
 
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