Review of HyperArcadeSystems 16TB cloud drive.

Review of HyperArcadeSystems 16TB cloud drive.

Chapter I: Let me give you a little background first to set the stage. I’ve had a bartop, standup, and a wide body pinball cabinet for a few years and decided to refresh the arcade PC’s. I started back in Nov 2017, researching with a retropie image which I quickly outgrew (I thought this would be cool for the bartop). I then stumbled upon the MLP 2TB HyperSpin image which was a great tutorial in how to fix issues with emulators, config files, roms, etc. Don’t get me wrong I thank MLP for releasing his image, which was a strong foundation to start with, but it is not a polished image. Over the next 2 MONTHS, I added over 8 more TB’s to the original 2TB image….It was like crack …..an emulator/rompack came out…I had to have it!!!!! I was configuring the PC more than I was playing……then I read about Hyper Arcade Systems…..

Chapter II: First off, let me start off by saying I don’t know Chris Shaw, nor is Chris paying me to write this, I am just one of the end users that purchased his product. There may be items in this review that Chris and the admins don’t agree with so I’ll say I’m sorry up front. Soooo, realistically, if you have the TIME and TROUBLESHOOTING skills (if you don’t know what an AHK file is…STOP! Go buy one of Chris’ drives) you can download 80% of what Chris offers on his 16TB drive for free. Now that may sound great….but let’s put this into prospective…..you find a new rom pack (hopefully it’s named correctly)…now you need the wheel images and video snaps for HyperSpin…..oh and let’s not forget you need to configure the emulator with RL/HS. It really is time consuming, even when you’ve done it 10 times in the past. $360 may seem like a lot, but anyone that has configured HS/RL, knows this is nothing compared to the time/frustration getting everything to work.

Chapter III: Most people are excited and eager once they part with their money, and I was no different. As SOON as the funds left my Paypal account, I wanted to start downloading and reading the forums, and then realized this was not Amazon.com . Please realize these guys have a life, this is not a 24/7 operation catering just to your needs. I will say Chris had sent his initial email within 3 hours of the morning I sent the payment. Access to the forums, seemed to be the biggest hurdle which took about 4 days. Downloading/extracting 16TB off the servers took about 2 weeks, I originally had a 75/75 connection and upgraded to 150/150 half way through. So at this point I’m ready for the setup/sync and petrified that something is going to go wrong. I’ve read the forms and see all these posts about if the setup/sync doesn’t work do this and that. So I kick off the setup….follow the prompts….(other than 7zip asking for a reboot –NO)…the installation went FLAWLESS!!!

Now onto the sync…. so I started the sync and FAIL….the server is offline….OMG NOOOO, so close the window……then I remembered, ALWAYS check the pinned FB post. Sure enough, the password had changed and upon inputting the right password, we were moving. There were really no written directions of the order, so I started the sync at the top, right clicked on the first profile (8TB+ Sync, 8TB and System Rom) and off it ran, syncing. I did the sync an additional 2 times for the other profiles without a hitch. So if I had one piece of advice for Chris and team it would be to make an install/sync PDF guide. I followed Chris’ email to the letter and while I’m pretty proficient, I could see areas where people would get tripped up (and maybe it will cut your support time down )

I’ll post an update one week in and one month in.

ONE WEEK IN – So a few things….The good, this image is pretty SOLID if you were on the fence I say go for it, it’s worth it. Chris has compiled just about every emulator and ROM set in the 16TB drive set. The sync is worth the $360 in itself (but see below) and as Chris adds/updates features you the end user profit.

Now the bad…If you are a NOVICE user of Hyperspin/Rocketlauncher and are buying this to play thousands of retrogames on a PC or a PC in a cabinet…STOP…goto https://www.hyperarcadesystems.com/ and buy one of Chris setups. 97% of the 16TB drive works flawless and I’m sure most of the simple issues I brought up will be fixed. Jeez give the guy some time 

So what are the bad, a week in……
- My biggest complaint would be to fix the underlying issues on some of the games first before adding pretty new wheels.
- The addition of a change log in the future would be great. This is an almost impossible task when we are talking about the size of this project. This could also dovetail into a more solid sync schedule…for example, The following changes were made on 15-FEB-2018 – If you are a novice user please refrain from updating until 29-FEB-2018 in case additional bugs are found.

Just a final though….like I said, I don’t know Chris or any of the Admins on his FB pages or forums. I’m sure someone will read this review and think “Oh look Chris has his friends posting reviews for more sales” Ummm sure….I think this review was pretty honest, and at sometimes blunt, but at the end of the day if that is what you believe, so be it.

Excellent review. Most of the points that you raised, I felt like it was my experience also.
From playing with Retropie, then moving onto MLP's 2TB image, and then onto finding Chris's website and purchasing the 'big boy' 16TB package.

I haven't finished downloading the second half of the "8TB+", but I have the first half, and root... so that was enough for me to get into Hyperspin and start playing around.

I don't have any experience of the 'sync' yet.. I'll have to wait until my initial download has completed.

I agree, on every point that you've made.
As you also mentioned, a changelog would be a great idea... But, might be hard for Chris to maintain due to the number of fixes / additions that are added.

I think a bug list would be a good idea too. Maybe in a form of a Google Doc's Spreadsheet.
Mainly just listing what's currently broken? For example, if one or two games from a wheel isn't showing correctly, these can be logged and fixed rather easily.

Multiple people could have access to that spreadsheet, and also Chris (he could mark them off as and when he fixes them).

That's just an idea... in practice, it might be very difficult to maintain (just like the changelog).

All in all, your review was very good, and I agree on all points.