I'm a database guy so everything looks like a database problem to me, but I'm not sure how this would fit in (as I'm completely unfamiliar with the data used he

I'm a database guy so everything looks like a database problem to me, but I'm not sure how this would fit in (as I'm completely unfamiliar with the data used here). Can anyone more knowledgeable than me suggest whether a database, on a conventional server with some decent RAM and a bunch of SSDs would have have worked and perhaps been cheaper? (Edit: OK, SSDs in 2019 might not have been affordable but spinny disks were cheap and still pretty fast)