Cavalry CAHDD Series USB Dual-Bay Dock with RAID Feature EN-CAHDD2B-D

This docking station is not going to be able to replace dedicated external or internal systems like Drobo or say a Promise RAID card in a motherboard but it certainly does the job. I use my drive for mirroring and have successfully used it for a month now with two 1 TB drives and it works quite well. The max is supposedly 4TB which seems pretty good (x2 two terabyte HDs). The drives synced very quickly and without any special prompting. Very reliable for quick back up.This device is USB only although on the internal circuitry there does appear to be space to solder an eSATA connector so maybe there is another model out there that has it. It functions without a GUI and uses switches on the back to control the RAID mode between JBOD, RAID 0, and RAID 1. I don't see how you can use this drive to do RAID 0+1 since you need more than two drives but that may be because the 4 bay version of this external array does support it and uses the same internal circuitry.The switches work by changing the binary sequence of the Calvary RAID device such as 011, 101, etc. For those of who who don't care there are three simple switches in the back that move up and down. You have to use the manual to decide how to orient the switches but it is not hard.JBOD appears to work well too but I have not tested RAID 0 well enough to determine reliability. Realistically though I would not bother with it since RAID 0 is made almost pointless since you have to use USB as the transfer medium thus slowing down the speeds to that of a regular HD. The USB drivers are plug and play but seem to work only for Windows as far as I can tell. I have not found anything thus far saying it works for Mac or Linux which is unfortunately normal. However, it may work but I have not tested it on anything other than Windows 7 for now. Also the manual does indicate it works with Windows XP and higher in case it is not posted in the ad.The activity lights on the drive are also helpful to make sure the data is syncing properly with the drives. The drives do get a bit hot for an external system but it is not terrible since they are in open air. Also I'll mention that the device holds both 2.5 and 3.5 inch drives securely and effortlessly making it very easy to exchange.As for extra things like customer support and warranty both seem adequate but certainly not perfect. Realistically if you want a good RAID system (I'm talking average not even the best available) you have to spend a few hundred dollars to get good customer service, warranty, and overall RAID system. Basically don't expect miracles from something for $40 and be sure you are not a casual RAID user. RAID is meant for people who understand computers or at least can afford to hire IT guys, otherwise you'll have issues understanding and using this device. My recommendation is just to get a basic external HD until you can afford something better since it is in the average users interest to KISS (Keep It Simple SillY). There are plenty of good rugged backup solutions easier to use than this like the Seagate mobile drive series which cater to average users.

First of all, I'm a Mac user, so my review is based from that standpoint. Having said that, it was truly plug and play! It was like buying a USB hub and inserting a couple of thumb drives in it. They just pop up on my desktop! My purchase was after a long research process, and I highly recommend my particular combination of Hub and Hard drives. I ordered my Cavalry Dock in conjunction with two, 2TB  Samsung Spinpoint F4EG 2 TB SATA2 5400rpm 32 MB Hard Drive HD204UI/Z4  Hard Drives, for $199.00! Imagine, 4 Terabytes of storage and the dock for less than 200 bucks!Don't let the 5400rpm discourage you (unless you are doing heavy Video Rendering and editing from the drives), you won't notice any difference when reading and writing image or text files.The advantage of 5400rprm over 7200rpm is that they run much cooler, and they will last much longer, simply because they don't rotate as many times a minute as the 7200rpms. Talk about cool! These drives are naked! They are not entrapped in an enclosure at all. No cooling fans to distract you. Can't get any cooler than that!They may not be as elegant as a LaCie Porshe enclosure, but I don't care about elegance around my workstation. I care about reliability and practicality. I can now buy additional bare drives cheaply, buy some anti-static bags to hold them in, and pop them into the Cavalry dock whenever I need to!Technical comments:The JBOD mode and the RAID mode both work perfectly. I tried them both ways. First I mounted both drives with the dip switches on the back of the Cavalry set to JBOD mode, so 2 separate drives popped up on my desktop. Then I powered down the dock, set the swithes to RAID 1 (which mirrors both disks with the same data and only one disk shows up on the desktop), copied some stuff into it, unmounted, turned the cavalry off again, switched back to JBOD mode and powered up the dock again. Two drives with the same name and the exact same data on both of them popped on my desktop, which proves that the RAID 1 mode works fine. I switched back to RAID 1 and that's the way I left my setup.With 2TB of storage and the simultaneous backup that Mirrored drives provide thru RAID, it's the best possible setup, in my opinion.I compared the Cavalry with other manufacturers of hard drive docks, and the reason that I picked Cavalry is because it's the one that least encapsulates the drive within the unit. The other ones I looked at, you insert them thru a spring loaded slot and about a third of the drive is now inside the dock, which reduces ventilation in my mind. They were also more expensive. I never heard of Cavalry before, but this particular product is a winner for me!

I think I already wrote a review, so this is going to be a short one.I am a techi little geeky person, so I know a little more or at least from time to time. I have the time to learn how my stuff works.So here it come:I tested in the three environments: Mac, Linux (Ubuntu) and Windows.I works great. There is Mac Driver for NTFS, only for Seagate if you do not payed $19.99 for the Paragon driver. check manufacturer's website. But beware, one time it got corrupted and nothing was readable from the MAC. I backup everything using a linux machine to clean the disk and reformat the unit. Then I copy back all data and reinstalled the driver in the MAC. So far so good.Raid works marvelously...simple unbelievable. I have started mirroring the HDD installing a clean or new disk while on linux then within the hour I shut down the computer and the Dock continues the mirroring process without problems. Later I go back to my desk and checked that both HDDs are OK!By the way It took me a week to learn to use this. At the beginning it was a nightmare failling to understand it. The manual lack information. On Linux, if you eject a disk you eject the whole dock. So it you have no raid enabled (2 separate disks) nor jbod you wil eject both disks at once, so you have been warned. If one disk is copying and the other is doing nothing, and you want to eject one and make hot swapping... llllllllol well Good Luck it might get corrupted.And it is very sensitive, if you desk does shake a little or you stumble into it, it might disconnect the disk and think you need to mirror the units. This is a problem if one disk is blank, so be careful when you insert the new media. I know I gave 4 stars, at the beginning as I wrote it was a nightmare I was going for 1.