Harder Drive: Hard drives we didn't want or need
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN treats it as a favorite example of silly but educational computer science, recommended often when threads touch odd storage hacks.
What it is
Tom7 (suckerpinch) builds and evaluates a series of absurd hard drives, including storage made from ping packets across the internet. The video accompanies his paper and mixes deep technical hacking with comedic storytelling.
Recommended by 12 HN commenters across 9 different months, 2022 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec shadowgovt · 2022-12 · on “I ran the length of every street in Pittsburgh: PAC TOM [video]”
His Harder Drive paper was amazing [ [this video] ], most especially the ending that considered a surprisingly common configuration of utterly useless, inefficient mass data storage that solves a problem nobody actually has.
Strong rec josephg · 2023-02 · on “Store files inside of YouTube videos”
Suckerpunch did a video on “harder drives” where he implemented a block storage device by storing data in ping packets. It’s one of my all time favourite technical talks - his style is amazing, and he’s an incredible story teller. [this video]
Strong rec alserio · 2023-07 · on “GradIEEEnt half decent: The hidden power of imprecise lines [video]”
As the other commenter said, everything on his channel is gold. Just the other day I was rewatching "Automated 3dfication of Nintendo games" [LINK] and "Harder Drives" [this video]
Strong rec mk_stjames · 2023-12 · on “NASA sends cat video over laser from 80 lunar distances”
This idea is covered during the first part of one of my favorite Tom7 videos. If this comment is the first you are hearing of Tom7... strap in and enjoy: [this video]
Strong rec godelski · 2025-03 · on “Vramfs: Vram Based Filesystem for Linux”
> harder drive Here's the direct YouTube link[0] I'd * HIGHLY* recommend this video to anyone here. It is exactly that fun silly computer science stuff where you also learn a shit ton. His channel is full of this stuff. Don't ask why, ask why not Is essentially the motto of his channel, and it is the best. Leads to lots of innovations and I think we all should encourage more of this kind of stuff. [0] [this video]
Recommends Lt_Riza_Hawkeye · 2023-02 · on “Store files inside of YouTube videos”
Maybe it doesn't have a post of its own, but I found these esoteric storage methods greatly entertaining as well: [this video]
Recommends mtlmtlmtlmtl · 2023-06 · on “Anything can be a message queue if you use it wrongly enough”
I love this! Reminds me of Harder Drive by Tom 7: [this video] It's better to go in unspoiled so I won't reveal any details.
Recommends cbm-vic-20 · 2023-06 · on “Happy 50th Birthday, Ethernet”
See also Tom7's "Harder Drive" video. The whole thing is great, but the part relevant to the parent comment starts at 2:31. [this video]