Home > Consumer Reviews > Cavalry Storage CAXE Series 1 TB USB / eSATA External Hard Drive CAXE3701T0 - Includes eSATA Kit

I'd avoid this drive. The first problem is that stand is omitted from the box so you must contact the company to get one. My first drive failed within two weeks. They ignored some of my communications. The RMA process is slow and you must pay to ship and insure the drive back to them. The replacement drive failed in the first two hours. It was sloppily packed, so I presume it was a used one. I again had to begin the slow RMA process and pay to ship and insure it again with my money. It's been six weeks since I purchased and still don't have a working drive.

I think the drives are either of very poor quality or poorly tested. I've never in eighteen years have had a hard drive last under two years.

Update: I received my third Cavalry drive. It came in a beat up box, poorly packed, rubber banded cables, serial number taped over, case scratched, and "warranty void if removed" sticker missing. The socket for the eSATA cable is so loose the cable will not seat securely. Bumping the drive ever so lightly locks up my DirecTV box. As I will not likely get a working product from Cavalry, I removed the drive from their case and directly wired it to my DirecTV receiver using an old PC power supply.

I have Time Warner service and DVR Explorer 8300HDC (with OCAP OS). I have this product for about 3 weeks now; no reboot, reset or estrange behavior whatsoever.

When I connected the HDD to the DVR eSATA interface, the DVR automatically recognized it and ask for formating. After clicked OK that was the last configuration that i did.

Recommended

My first purchase was a silver CAXE3701T0. I've owned it for about 2 months and am using it with a Tivo HD. About a month ago, I purchased the black CAXM3701T0. Both units are relatively quiet. Both boxes feel barely warm to the touch. Both have an on/off switch. I have not opened the enclosure, but I've read that others have confirmed the silver model has a Western Digital drive. The only difference that I have noticed is the black enclosure is 9" long and the silver is only 8" long. I have not had any issues with either drive reading/writing 24x7 with my Tivo units.

One note for Tivo HD owners. This unit is "plug and play" for the Tivo HD series 3 with the larger internal hard drive. But the Tivo HD model without the series 3 in the description (TivoHD) and smaller internal hard drive, it requires opening the Tivo unit, temporarily attaching the internal and external Cavalry drive to a PC, running a quick program to pair the two drives, and then putting everything back together. You can find the instructions on the tivocommunity dot com forums by searching for "external tivo storage". From start to finish, it should take most people less than 30 minutes to complete.

Cavalry is currently using a Hitachi HD721010SLA360 and that Hard Drive is not compatible with the TiVo HD.
See here: [...]

So if you want to use the Cavalry as an eSATA HD, it's the luck of the draw, your unit may or may not have a TiVo compatible HD.

My CAXM 1TB External Hard Drive contains Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 Hard Disk. It's a very good disk for an external hard drive. Check out tomshardware review of Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B.

Here are some disk specs from the review: "... HDT721010SLA360, which can be broken down like so: Hitachi Deskstar T-series (HDT), 7,200 RPM (72), maximum family capacity 1 TB (the first 10), actual capacity (the second 10), the generation (S) and Z-height (L stands for 26.1 mm), the interface (3 = SATA/300) and the cache capacity (6 = 16 MB)."

So, it is a 7200 RPM disk with 16 MB cache and quite low idle power consumption - 5.4W, which should make it perfect for eSATA capable DVRs.

It works well with my DirecTV HR22-100 DVR.

The black CAXM measures 7 5/8" x 4 3/8" x 1 1/4" or 193mm/112mm/32mm, it has a power switch (very convenient for a backup disk which is not going to be always on), eSATA and USB 2.0 interfaces, the enclosure is aluminum and it has no cooling fans. The stand is plastic and it is held in place by friction, it's a little flimsy, but does the job.

The disk looks and feels high quality and it is not going to be an eyesore on your desk or next to your DVR.

My disk came with the stand, an eSATA bracket for a desktop, a 100-244V~ 50-60Hz Power adapter with 5' adapter to disk cable (the adapter looks a little different from the one, shown on the product pictures and it measures: 3.5"x2"x1.3", excluding the integrated two prong power plug), a 48" eSATA cable and a 40" USB cable. Very nice package for the price!