Drobo is running a contest to give away a number of Drobos, asking the question, “What would you do with 100 Drobos?”
I think the answer is not an easy one. Sure, anyone can say “I’d take all 100 and give them to charity!” or, “I’d store every movie ever!” These are good first thoughts, but the matter requires deeper introspection.
First off, is it 100 Drobos of the base model? Is it 100 Drobos S, or Drobo Elite? I think that would change the matter considerably. However, for the sake of argument, lets assume it’s the Drobo base model.
I am a lover of film, an editor by trade, and, well, a bit of a hoarder, so let’s work with that.
Right now, I have a single Drobo that keeps all of my iTunes media in one place, so I can stream them to my AppleTV or other computers in the house, but I also have shelves full of DVDs that I can’t easily access anywhere. I think five Drobos out of that hundred would do nicely to store all of those movies for instant access.
For my editing business, let’s see if I can negotiate for Drobo to trade 15 of the base model in on an equivalent value worth of Drobos Elite, which will support my growing media empire quite nicely.
That leaves eighty Drobos left. Lets put five in my house to act as backup drives for Time Machine (with Time Tamer, of course), and give one to 25 of my closest friends to do the same.
That leaves fifty. I think giving twenty out to people designing multimedia art projects (streaming video projection loops, etc.) would be a fun experience, and donating the last thirty to the local school system to help store media for in-school editing and multimedia classes would be a great way to round things off.