HN stores everything as files in certain directories. A directory is sort of like a table, and each file is sort of like a row in that table. I think there is a

HN stores everything as files in certain directories. A directory is sort of like a table, and each file is sort of like a row in that table. I think there is a directory for profiles, stories, and votes. I forget how cookie-user mappings are stored, it might be a single file or another directory. The data is stored in files, but there is a lot of caching done to make everything fast.