Random question, how big is hacker news? It’s plain text so I’d imagine it’s reasonably compact?
<back of napkin>
Based on the current id, about 45,000,000 items.
Assuming 1KB per item, about 45GB.
So with code and OS, probably it would fit on a $10 thumb drive without compression.
</back of napkin>
If I am within a couple of orders of magnitude, it is hard for me to see a benefit from compression.