Understanding X360 Cloud Storage

This is just information thread and possible issues with X360 Cloud Storage.

Advertised spec:
512MB of Storage Storage online and auto sync game saves with local copy*.

Less known spec:
*Where the local copy is actually stored (hint: not the in Storage where you normally see), multiple Gamertags on the same console using Cloud Storage, same Gamertag storing out of sync game saves on multiple consoles, console with no hard drive, what happens to the game saves stored in Cloud Storage after Gold Live expired, and different type of "copy protected" game saves stored in Cloud Storage.

1. *Where the local copy is actually stored (hint: not the in Storage where you normally see):
After you enabled Cloud Storage on Gamertag account with Gold Live, it creates a hidden 512MB file to sync the game saves located on Cloud Storage online. (To me, the word "cloud storage" doesn't mean much unless I know how the online copy syncs with local copy). When you start a game and picked the save game location, even you picked Cloud Storage, it actually saves to the hidden 512MB file locally. That is the reason if Live or internet connection goes down while you are playing a game, you don't get the error, Cloud Storage has disappeared. After you have quit the game, that's when it syncs the local copy of game saves to the online Cloud Storage. You can catch that if you press Guide button and go to Active downloads. Usually it syncs up very quickly but sometimes it gets stuck in the pending state for a few minutes before it syncing up.

* = if you have a hard drive on your X360, you don't need to read this. But if you don't have a hard drive on X360 and presume models with no/small internal flash storage, you want to know this. I tested on Jasper Arcade model that only has 256MB of internal flash storage. I cannot enable Cloud Storage because it will get error not having free 514MB of free space to create the hidden 512MB file. I have not tested with newer Arcade that has 4GB of internal flash storage or models with no internal storage. This is one important hardware requirement that Microsoft isn't telling you. All Microsoft advertises is upgrade to Gold Live for Cloud Storage. Not entirely true.

Addition: Cloud Storage still can't be enabled if there is only USB drives formatted to X360 Storage. I assume Cloud Storage only checks for hard drive or internal flash memory that has more than 514MB free. Is it a bug or by design?

2. What happens to the game saves stored in Cloud Storage after Gold Live expired:
I have only subscribed to the $1/month Gold Live deals lately. Once the Gold Live expires, "all" your "Cloud Storage" game saves are still accessible. I use "all" because you are really accessing the game saves stored in the hidden 512MB file locally on the hard drive. So, if you remove the X360 hard drive, all the game saves in "Cloud Storage" will disappear. If you have synced your game games in Cloud Storage on multiple consoles before Gold Live expires, you can still move (not copy) the game saves in "Cloud Storage" to any other storage. All it does is erase the copy of game saves in the 512MB file. Better than nothing because PS3 Cloud Storage will not allow you do retrieve any game saves in Cloud Storage once PS+ expires.

3. Multiple Gamertags on the same console using Cloud Storage:
I only have Gold Live access one Gamertag account at a time but I found something interesting. I'll called 1st Gamertag account GT1 and 2nd Gamertag account GT2. On GT1, when I have Gold Live, I stored several game saves on the Cloud Storage for different games. After GT1 Gold Live expired, I left some game saves in the Storage Storage mostly to test what will happen to them. I already answered that in #2 above. Then, I subscribe to Gold Live on GT2. After I enabled the Cloud Storage on the same console that I had Gold Live for GT1, I found the free space in the Cloud Storage is less than 512MB. The free space for GT2 is subtract what GT1 already used in Cloud Storage. GT1 has game save in Cloud Storage for "Game A". When GT2 copies a game save for "Game A" to the Cloud Storage, it overridden the GT1 game save for "Game A" even both game saves have different Gamertag creator. That's not nice. Explaination is both Gamertags are sharing the same hidden 512MB file which is the reason GT2 started off with less free space in Cloud Storage.

What I cannot answer at this time is having two or more Gold Live accounts. If all the Gamertags are sharing the same hidden 512MB file, file clashes will occur and how it handles them. And since every Gold Live Gamertags are sharing the same hidden 512MB file or how Cloud Storage handles them if each Gamertag uses up to 512MB of Cloud Storage.

4. Same Gamertag storing out of sync game saves on multiple consoles:
If you have read #1-3 above, you have probably know how this works. What happens if you play the same game on multiple consoles at different time, use Cloud Storage and USB flash storage transfer your game saves? Normally, you would say don't do it. But X360 storage system allows you. That means someone will do it. Whenever Cloud Storage is syncing with the local copy, it determines which game saves has the latest date/time. But if you try hard enough, you can cause the game save copy on Cloud Storage and every console copy to become out of sync. Cloud Storage works by prompting you which version of the game saves you want to keep.

5. There are several types of "copy protected" game saves. The oldest and nastiest type is when the game prompts where to save the game, the game save file is permanently locked to that storage. You are not allowed to move or do anything to change the storage. A few games I'm aware that use this type of "copy protection", ie. Dead of Alive 4, DOA Xtreme 2 and Street Fighter 4. Another type is the game save file is only allowed to be moved to another storage, ie. only one copy game save is allowed. A lot of games use this. Another newer type is the game splits the game saves file into two files (not two copies). The copy you can see in the Storage "often" stores only your game progress. The hidden game save file stores like collectable objects. I have played a few games using this type of "copy protection" but each game stores different stuff in the hidden file. I found a way to force such type of "copy protection" by removing the hard drive and force the game to save to the traditional X360 memory card that doesn't have a place to store the hidden save file. But USB storage formatted for X360 behaves like hard drive where hidden save file is stored in the reserved 512MB.

With Cloud Storage, "all" or most "copy protected" game saves is converted into "exist on one storage only" or only allow to be moved. If I'm only allowed to have one copy of my game saves, then what is Cloud Storage syncing against? This is actually the reason I started investigating what Cloud Storage is secretly doing. I don't trust to blindly use any type of storage technology unless I know what it's doing.

By combinating #1, #4 and #5, I found a way to duplicate multiple copies of "copy protected" game saves that only allow to "exist on one storage". I have other methods of clone those type of "copy protection" saves for years but if I have Cloud Storage, why not? As I explained, when you "moved" a game save from Cloud Storage to a local storage in Storages, all it does is erase the game save copy from online and the hidden 512MB file after it fully synced up. The trick is unplug your X360 from the internet where it can only access the hidden 512MB file for your offline Cloud Storage. You also need two consoles with same Gamertag. This is how you clone your "copy protected" game save file that only allowed "to exist on one storage":
(1) With two consoles, make sure both consoles have synced Cloud Storage. (2) Unplug console A from internet and move the game save from offline Cloud Storage to another Storage device.
(3) Reconnect to internet and login. Cloud Storage will resync and deletes the online copy of the game save.
(4) Boot up and login and sync the Cloud Storage with the console B. Technically, console B is out of sync with Cloud Storage. But the way Microsoft designed Cloud Storage, console B will copy the game saves back to Cloud Storage online again. I would say I haven't tested this with a lot of games if the trick always works but it worked for me.

I presume the Cloud Storage doesn't have a record when the game save files existed once deleted from online Cloud Storage and later always assumes on another console that still has the old save game files in the the hidden 512MB file is the latest and syncs copies it back to the online Cloud Storage if missing. Can be messy if console A user is cleaning up the Cloud Storage and when the user logins to console B with the same Gamertag will put all the deleted game saves back to the Cloud Storage. To the advantage of cloning "copy protected" game saves, this becomes a feature.

As for "copy protection" that splits the game save into two files as I described above, I don't have those games anymore. So, I can't answer if you move those "dual-files" game save to Cloud Storage, both files get moved or not.

I'll update this thread with more tips and tricks of Cloud Storage if I discover more.

X360 Cloud Storage is probably the simplest type because it's a single user at a time to access the same file and 1st saves your data to a local hidden file, it doesn't have to deal with many advanced online/cloud storage complexities. Maybe some day when Microsoft allows multiple logins on different consoles with same Gamertag, then it has to deal with same Gamertag users opening the same file stored online/cloud storage directly and multiple users writing to the same game saves, then it will get interesting. Hint: Microsoft Office allows multiple users accessing the same file stored online storage at the same time. Certain database allows multiple users reading and writing to the same file at the same time.

If you have a hard drive, just copy every game save from the USB stick to Cloud Storage. After synced, Cloud Storage then keeps the game saves a copy online and another copy in the hidden 512MB file which is also on hard drive by default.

That is how I mostly use Cloud Storage.

If you don't have any hard drive and have Arcade model with 4GB internal flash storage, I would guess it works because it will store the hidden 512MB file on the 4GB flash storage (can't use your own USB flash stick from what I tested).

Thanks. Good to know. So, Microsoft needs to be clear that if you have older Arcade with 256-512MB flash storage, Cloud Storage will not work.

Technically, Cloud Storage default expectation is you will always have internet + Live access. Personally, I prefer calling it "Online Storage" because that's what really is. The word "Cloud" sounds more mysterious as you have no idea where you data is stored. In reality, small "online/cloud" storage space is really on one SAN. Even the SAN drives are spanned across multiple SANs at different locations, tiny amount of data mostly likely to be together at one location. Also, are your data duplicated across multiple SANs at difficult locations to prevent single point of failure? Isn't "Cloud" is all about, your data is always reachable from any place which includes multiple paths to reach the SANs that hold multiple copies of the data. Somehow I doubt many online companies that sell Cloud Storage are doing this.

I understand that's official Microsoft info on Cloud Storage but it doesn't explain most of inner workings like what I wrote above. For example,
"514 megabytes (MB) of storage space is required

Game saves in the cloud requires 514 megabytes (MB) of local storage space to store saved games before they are uploaded to the cloud. You need to free up 514 MB of space on your Xbox 360 Hard Drive or USB storage device. For information on how to do this, see Copy, move, or delete content."

If you have older Arcade model with only 256MB or 512MB, Cloud Storage will not work but Microsoft doesn't tell you why. Same as console with no internal flash storage or hard drive will not work with Cloud Storage.

That was the reason I created this thread to help better explain inner working of X360 Cloud Storage. The bad part if you do need to call Microsoft for help, trying to tell the customer support about unpublished workings of Cloud Storage isn't very helpful. For other reasons I have called Sony/Microsoft customer supports for issues on their product beyond my control, even after I tried to provide them with several proofs, they don't believe me.

Sorry, didn't mean to shoot the messenger.

Comparing between X360 and PS3 Cloud Storage, I prefer X360 non-persistent connection to work. Once it reconnects to Live, it auto syncs up quite well. One thing Microsoft should make it clearer is Cloud Storage is not syncing with "Storage" copy of the game saves. When I first started using Cloud Storage, that was what I thought when proven to be false.

The more informed how the Cloud Storage works internally, the safer in using it because we know conditions that may "loose" the save game file.

PS3 Cloud Storage persistent connection requirement of course assumes the game isn't going freak out if the PSN connection gets dropped because the Cloud Storage media simply disappears. If you mark a game to auto sync the game saves with Cloud Storage, it's done in the background copying every game saves files (if the game saves multiple save files) to Cloud Storage. With only 150MB of Cloud Storage space, it runs out quite easily if you play RPG games that can grow over 10MB on each individual save. Copy protected save also require 24 hours of wait before it's allowed to sync back to another console. Overall, it's smaller and more restrictions.

One feature I like to see is both X360 and PS3 have the ability to auto sync/mirror multiple consoles hard drives 100% the same. As the owner of multiple consoles, it's nice not having to ensure all my game saves, installed games/DLC, etc need to be manually copied over. As long you own the same Gamertag or PSN ID on multiple consoles, they need to auto sync the licenses. I shouldn't even need to think which game saves to be stored on Cloud Storage. If I have Gold Live or PS+, I just need to enable one button, and every console will auto sync the files 100% the same from then on. That way, I can simply go from the console in the living room to the bedroom console and everything needed for the game such as DLC are ready even on the first time. Right now, only game saves enabled for Cloud Storage is ready.

I think I may have broke or caused Cloud Storage to become stuck internally trying to sync between two consoles "missing" files

Since I found Cloud Storage does not check the last login console Cloud Storage state, I'm able to use this to my advantage to "clone" copy-protected game saves. I tested "cloning" several times with a few game saves and worked every time.

So I decided to take out my old X360 memory card that contains about 50MB worth of copy-protected game saves to use Cloud Storage to clone them between two consoles. (by having a copy of game saves cloned on the hard drive on both consoles).

1st phase getting 2nd console to clone over all the game saves to local hard drive that were uploaded by 1st console to Cloud Storage. That worked. But when I try to get the 1st console to resync the game saves back to Cloud Storage that have been moved by 2nd console to local hard drive, the 1st console started to resync since there's no record what 2nd console did to the Cloud Storage. But after successfully resynced about 30MB of game saves, all the rest of out of sync game saves got stuck in "Pending Upload" state. If I logout or reboot 1st console, "Active Download" shows syncing saved games for a few seconds but refused to get the rest of the Cloud Storage game saves out of "Pending Upload".

If you are thinking maybe it's the Cloud Storage security that is trying to prevent me from cloning the game saves, I don't think so. 1st, the "security" if there's one doesn't preventing me from cloning if I do a few files at a time. 2nd, I cannot tell the files stuck in "Pending Upload" to cancel or force sync. All I can do is delete the entire 514MB Cloud Storage hidden file which will kill all the files (cloned or not) in the Cloud Storage or delete all the files stuck in the "Pending Upload" state.

This looks like a bug in X360 Cloud Storage to me if I got it to resync "missing" 50MB of Cloud Storage files. I can also include lack of Cloud Storage security to check the last logged in console for the Cloud Storage state to prevent "cloning". Microsoft also needs to add the ability to cancel any files that got stuck when trying to sync with Cloud Storage.

It appears if I start to fill up Cloud Storage with hundreds of game saves and have it auto sync between two consoles, the reported available Cloud Storage on both consoles become inconsistent even it said files are In-sync.

My theory is when you select Storage and look at Cloud Storage, it's reporting the free space on the local hidden 514MB file that stores the files to be in-sync with Cloud Storage. Since I already found the 514MB file on the hard drive is shared with multiple Gamertags, each console that has other Gamertag previously had Gold Live and used Cloud Storage will not remain in-sync later.

One question I have is what if multiple Gamertags, all with Gold Live and all using Cloud Storage pushing to fill up 512MB Cloud Storage space online? There is no way the shared 514MB file has enough space for this to work properly. It's more difficult to test it since I need almost 500MB of game saves for each Gamertag to test this. (Best I was able to prove this is my oldest Gamertag has around 300MB worth of game saves and that already showing Cloud Storage free space inconsistency among two consoles.)

I hope Microsoft did test scale this scenario since I found a bug that cloning game saves can cause the file to get stuck in "Pending Upload" state.

It seems my original intention for this thread to report how Cloud Storage works has turned into bugs found with Cloud Storage.

After I copied a large group of game saves to the Cloud Storage that I discovered reported Cloud free capacity between consoles, etc, I found another bug with the Cloud.

Normally, Cloud Storage only allows game saves file type. Any other type of file will not be allowed to be copied onto the Cloud. The way I copied the large group of game saves if select the game name "folder" that be consisted of game saves, DLC, marketplace, etc. By doing this way, it's easier to copy the game saves and copy one by one individually and Cloud supposed to skip non-game saves file type.

Well, Cloud non-game saves file type filter doesn't always work properly. Example, I found Rockband on the Cloud has the save game and marketplace DLC files. Looking at the Rockband marketplace file on the Cloud say's it's not supported.

How well did Microsoft test Cloud Storage before calling it ready for release? So far, I have done is really try to use the Cloud Storage harder, all within the product ability.

Summary of bugs found:
1. Resyncing "moved" copy protected save game files between two consoles can get some files to get stuck permanently in "Pending Upload". Cloud needs the ability to check the last login console state to know what previous files that were on Cloud on the other console already got moved offline. Right now, if the console "514MB cache file" still contain the Cloud list of files, Cloud will blindly restore all the missing files back onto Cloud. But I found some of the missing files can get into "Pending Upload" state forever. My theory is the cached Cloud file copy says to sync with online copy but the online copy is missing. But it wants to check the online copy to see which one is newer version. So, it gets stuck requesting the version info from online copy that will never respond.

2. Since each console shares its own "514M local Cloud Storage cached files" on each console hard drive, having multiple Gamertag accounts using the Cloud Storage causes it to report less space available because the 514MB local caching is shared as one total storage. After two or more accounts filling up the Cloud Storage, how is the 514MB caching files going to hold every files in Cloud in sync?

3. This gets worse when multiple Gamertag accounts are syncing the Cloud Storage between two or more consoles. On each console, the available Cloud Storage free space is inconsistent. This is more of an issue as there are a few hundred Megs of game saves on Cloud. By default, the 2nd or later console that synced with Cloud doesn't transfer a copy of the game files to the local hard drive in the 514MB cached file until the user copies the save file back to the 2nd and later console. Unless the user decides to "touch" every file in the Cloud Storage, every console ended up with different amount of "In sync" Cloud files that are cached to the local hard drive. In the end, you can't tell how much free space in the Cloud Storage depending which console you are on because Cloud Storage reports free space based on the 514MB caching file on the hard drive.

4. Sometimes copying the game "folder" that consists of game gaves, marketplace DLC, etc into Cloud fails to filter out non-game saves file type. Non-supported file type ended up stored in the Cloud Storage.

Has anyone seen any of the Cloud Storage bugs or misbehaviors that I described?

If anyone still cares about knowing bugs in Cloud Storage.

Without trying to break or cause Cloud Storage to go out of sync, I just copied 256MB of Final Fantasy XIII-2 game saves which is 24MB each to Cloud Storage.

On the 1st console, after completed copied all 256MB of FF XIII-2 game saves, Cloud Storage said it has 97MB free.

On the 2nd console, I checked and it said all the FF XIII-2 save in-sync but the files are only located online. So, I copied all 256MB of FF XIII-2 game saves to 2nd console local hard drive. Before it completed copying all the game saves file, it got an error that the local drive is out of space. Of course, that's a lie because the local hard drive still has 31GB free. I think out of space error is referring to the shared 514MB cache Cloud files which is inconsistent between both consoles since what files actually saved in Cloud Storage online is different from also located in the shared 514MB Cloud cache between both consoles.

I really think Microsoft testers never tested this test scenario how I use Cloud Storage. Having every console 100% mirrored what Cloud Storage are online and also a local copy isn't realistic because in the real world, unless the user manually copy every files located on Cloud Storage online to local drive by hand, every console will not have it. And with multiple Gamertags using Cloud Storage, is further cause more problem with shared 514MB Cloud cache.

If you ask why you have never seen this problem. Have you copied over 300-400+MB of game saves into the Cloud Storage and then you only copy down to local drive some of the Cloud Storage files between different consoles? Single user console probably will never see most of the bugs I described in this thread.

Clarification to knowing where you game saves files are when you use Cloud Storage. Go to Cloud Storage and look at a game save file. If it shows:
Cloud Only - that means the only copy of game save file is located online only.
In-sync - that means the game save file is mirrored between online and local hard drive in the shared 514MB Cloud cache and 100% the same.
Pending Upload - previously was in-sync but either the game saves file online or local drive copy is missing. Cloud is trying to make a copy to the missing game save drive. If the local drive copy is the missing, sometimes it can get stuck forever in Pending Upload state. This happens when you moved/deleted the local copy on one console and the other console doesn't know about it and trying to restore the moved/deleted file and got itself stuck.

If you have two consoles, 1st console that you copied the game saves file from local hard drive to Cloud will always in be "in-sync" status (unless you do something to cause it out of sync). On 2nd console, by default, Cloud will show the game save file be on "Cloud Only" because the local drive doesn't have a copy of the same game save. You have to manually copy down the game saves to the local drive before it will say "in-sync". This is the problem I was describing above when you have like 400+ of game saves in the Cloud Storage.

If anyone has seen odd behaviors with Cloud Storage, please reply to this thread.

Summary of what I found using Cloud Storage:
It works well when:
1. For single account user on one or more consoles.
2. For multi account users all using Cloud Storage on multi consoles but only use a smaller capacity in Cloud Storage space. How much depends on each account user is using Cloud Storage.

It may have problem when:
1. For multi account users all using Cloud Storage on one console once filling closer to all Cloud Storage space capacity.
2. For multi account users all using Cloud Storage on multi consoles once filling closer to all Cloud Storage space capacity. The problem is caused by sharing one 514MB Cloud cache file.
3. User deletes or moves game save files on Cloud Storage on multiple consoles that also have Cloud syncs a copy of each game save files to location hard drive. It can cause the console that has has a copy online in Cloud but missing file on local drive to get stuck in Pending Upload forever.

Can you "move" those game saves to another storage? I have tried on the oldest game saves, ie: Dead of Alive 4 and DOA Xtreme 2 that had non-copyable and non-movable game saves but with Cloud Storage, those two game saves become movable to any storage now.

I assume you are login as same Gamertag as 1st X360 that has Cloud Storage.

On the 2nd or slim X360, have you enabled Cloud Storage? Once Cloud Storage is active, at Storage, Cloud Storage will display the free space.

Here's what happen when you have game saves on the 1st console. If you save to the hard drive or other USB storage first, and then you copy the game saves to the Cloud Storage, it will keep a copy in the cloud online, a copy in the hidden 514MB cloud cache and original copy.

If you save directly into the Cloud Storage, the only copy of the game saves is in the cloud online. If you look at the game saves file, it says cloud only. Until you manually copy the game saves from cloud storage to local drive, it will not sync between cloud online and local copy.

When you go to the 2nd console and login as the same Gamertag and look at the Storage Storage, the game saves will say cloud only. You have to manually copy down the cloud online to the local drive before it syncs both copies.

From now on, be careful which copy of game saves you update when playing the game. Using the game saves located at Cloud Storage is the right one because it enables Cloud to resync between both consoles on the local copy (if they exist). If you don't, you many ended up with 2 or 3 different revision of the same game saves. Cloud Storage supposed to know to resync them but I found it doesn't always work.

Note: Keeping a copy on local drive is optional but I feel safer having a copy of game saves on local drive. If your Gold Live expires or no connection to Live, then going to "Cloud Storage" will show you the copy in the hidden 514MB cloud cache.