Random question, how big is hacker news? It’s plain text so I’d imagine it’s reasonably compact?
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.