Best Databases & storage videos, as recommended on Hacker News

66 videos about databases & storage that Hacker News commenters keep recommending, mentioned between 2008 and 2026. Mostly talk, lecture, demo. Channels that come up most: Strange Loop Conference, GOTO Conferences, Google TechTalks, InfoQ. Sorted by how consistently HN recommended them over the years.

The most recommended is "Testing Distributed Systems w/ Deterministic Simulation" by Will Wilson: HN treats it as the canonical talk on simulation testing and a mind-blowing example of how far rigorous testing can go.

talk"Testing Distributed Systems w/ Deterministic Simulation" by Will WilsonStrange Loop Conference · 12 HN recommenders · 2014–2024
talkThe Value of Values with Rich HickeyInfoQ · 10 HN recommenders · 2014–2023
talkAWS re:Invent 2018: Amazon DynamoDB Deep Dive: Advanced Design Patterns for DynamoDB (DAT401)Amazon Web Services · 12 HN recommenders · 2019–2025
talk"Turning the database inside out with Apache Samza" by Martin KleppmannStrange Loop Conference · 9 HN recommenders · 2015–2025
talkConflict Resolution for Eventual Consistency • Martin Kleppmann • GOTO 2016GOTO Conferences · 3 HN recommenders · 2017–2020
lecture01 - Course Introduction & Relational Model (CMU Databases Systems / Fall 2019)CMU Database Group · 6 HN recommenders · 2020–2023
talkIntroduction to NoSQL • Martin Fowler • GOTO 2012GOTO Conferences · 6 HN recommenders · 2015–2021
talkRich Hickey rants about HttpServletRequest in 1080p: Death By Specificity from Clojure Made SimpleFred Overflow · 5 HN recommenders · 2020–2026
talkTigerStyle! (Or How To Design Safer Systems in Less Time) by Joran Dirk GreefTigerBeetle · 2 HN recommenders · 2023–2025
talkBryan Cantrill from Joyent on Manta: internet-facing object storage facility that features computeAI Council · 4 HN recommenders · 2014–2026
lectureMichael Stonebraker | Big Data is (at least) Four Different ProblemsMichigan Engineering · 5 HN recommenders · 2015–2024
talk"I See What You Mean" by Peter AlvaroStrange Loop Conference · 6 HN recommenders · 2016–2019
talkZebras All the Way Down - Bryan Cantrill, Uptime 2017Code & Supply · 6 HN recommenders · 2018–2025
talkZFS: The Last Word in File Systems Part 1Deirdré Straughan · 4 HN recommenders · 2016–2026
talkBreakout Session Presented by Dan Robinson of Heap at PGConf Silicon Valley 2015Citus Data · 4 HN recommenders · 2016–2020
talkHow We've Scaled DropboxStanford · 5 HN recommenders · 2014–2023
talkGreg Young - CQRS and Event Sourcing - Code on the Beach 2014Code on the Beach · 4 HN recommenders · 2016–2022
talkSQLite: The Database at the Edge of the Network with Dr. Richard HippMethod · 4 HN recommenders · 2017–2024
demointroducing copyparty, the FOSS file servertripflag · 7 HN recommenders · 2025–2026
talkRich Hickey: Deconstructing the DatabaseInfoQ · 4 HN recommenders · 2012–2020
tutorialChristophe Pettus - PostgreSQL Proficiency for Python People - PyCon 2016PyCon 2016 · 3 HN recommenders · 2016–2016
talkLower Latency Graph Queries in Cypher with Redis GraphRoi Lipman, Redis LabsTim Davis, Texas A&M URedis · 3 HN recommenders · 2018–2023
lectureDonald B. Gillies Lecture: Dr. Michael StonebrakerSiebel School of Computing and Data Science · 2 HN recommenders · 2018–2024
talkDuckDB – The SQLite for Analytics (Mark Raasveldt, CWI)CMU Database Group · 2 HN recommenders · 2020–2026
talkWhat is in a Lucene index? Adrien Grand, Software Engineer, ElasticsearchLuceneSolrRevolution · 3 HN recommenders · 2019–2020
talkBryan Cantrill on ARC: A Self-Tuning, Low Overhead Replacement Cache [PWL SF] 10/2017PapersWeLove · 3 HN recommenders · 2019–2024
demoAvi Bryant demos Dabble dbTavis Rudd · 2 HN recommenders · 2014–2023
talk"Swift as C++ Successor in FoundationDB" by Konrad Malawski (Strange Loop 2023)Strange Loop Conference · 3 HN recommenders · 2023–2025
talkRichard Hipp - Git: Just Say Nosoutheastlinuxfest · 3 HN recommenders · 2020–2021
talkHow Modern SQL Databases Come up with Algorithms that You Would Have Never Dreamed Of by Lukas EderDevoxx · 3 HN recommenders · 2019–2023
talkFour Languages from Forty Years Ago - Scott WlaschinNDC Conferences · 2 HN recommenders · 2019–2022
tutorialA Tour of PrologThe Power of Prolog · 2 HN recommenders · 2022–2024
talkBringing the Unix Philosophy to Big Data by Bryan Cantrill: FutureStack13New Relic · 2 HN recommenders · 2014–2022
talk"Transactions: myths, surprises and opportunities" by Martin KleppmannStrange Loop Conference · 2 HN recommenders · 2018–2023
demoDabble DB demokrueggen · 2 HN recommenders · 2014–2018
talkXFS: Recent and Future Adventures in Filesystem Scalability - Dave ChinnerLinux.conf.au 2012 -- Ballarat, Australia · 2 HN recommenders · 2012–2023
talkThe Maximal Graph - Wilker SilvaClojureTV · 2 HN recommenders · 2019–2020
commentaryThe Worst Typo I Ever MadeTom Scott · 2 HN recommenders · 2020–2026
talkSeattle Conference on Scalability: YouTube ScalabilityGoogle TechTalks · 2 HN recommenders · 2008–2013
talkBetrFS: A Right-Optimized Write-Optimized File SystemMicrosoft Research · 2 HN recommenders · 2016–2023
talkZFS Native Encryption by Tom CaputiOpenZFS · 2 HN recommenders · 2016–2022
talk"Datafun: a functional query language" by Michael ArntzeniusStrange Loop Conference · 2 HN recommenders · 2018–2025
lectureRust at speed — building a fast concurrent databaseJon Gjengset · 2 HN recommenders · 2019–2022
demoFoundry 2022 Operating System DemoPalantir · 2 HN recommenders · 2022–2026
talkModern SQL: A lot has changed since SQL-92 by Markus WinandDevoxx · 2 HN recommenders · 2019–2023
talkJune 2021 FreeBSD Developer Summit: Raid-Z ExpansionFreeBSD · 2 HN recommenders · 2021–2023
talkAWS re:Invent 2018: Amazon DynamoDB Under the Hood: How We Built a Hyper-Scale Database (DAT321)Amazon Web Services · 2 HN recommenders · 2018–2022
talkYour web app but good: Aaron Boodman (Local-First Conf)Local-First Conf · 1 HN recommender · 2024–2025
talkA Brief History of the BSD Fast Filesystem by Marshall Kirk McKusickEuroBSDCon · 1 HN recommender · 2020–2023
talkAWS re:Invent 2019: [REPEAT 1] Amazon DynamoDB deep dive: Advanced design patterns (DAT403-R1)AWS Events · 1 HN recommender · 2020–2022
talkLucas Cavalcanti & Edward Wible - Exploring four hidden superpowers of DatomicClojureTV · 1 HN recommender · 2015–2024
talkEvent Sourcing • Greg Young • GOTO 2014GOTO Conferences · 1 HN recommender · 2015–2026
talkThesis: Partial State in Dataflow-Based Materialized ViewsJon Gjengset · 1 HN recommender · 2020–2024
talkVelocity 2011: Artur Bergman, "Artur on SSD's"O'Reilly · 1 HN recommender · 2011–2021
talkGreg Young — A Decade of DDD, CQRS, Event SourcingDomain-Driven Design Europe · 1 HN recommender · 2016–2026
talkThe past, present, and future of local-first - Martin Kleppmann (Local-First Conf)Local-First Conf · 1 HN recommender · 2025–2025
talkEscape from the Heap: Low-Level Programming in Common LispArthur Gleckler · 1 HN recommender · 2016–2020
talkThe Many Meanings of Event-Driven Architecture • Martin Fowler • GOTO 2017GOTO Conferences · 1 HN recommender · 2018–2022
talkSQLite: Protégé of PostgreSQLAndrea Ross · 1 HN recommender · 2014–2017
talkH3: Tiling the Earth with HexagonsUber Engineering · 1 HN recommender · 2018–2025
talkNYC Tech Talk Series: How Google Backs Up the InternetGoogle TechTalks · 1 HN recommender · 2014–2021
commentaryAll of our data is GONE!Linus Tech Tips · 1 HN recommender · 2019–2021
talkAn Introduction to SQLiteGoogle TechTalks · 1 HN recommender · 2011–2018
comedyDev Deletes Entire Production Database, Chaos EnsuesKevin Fang · 1 HN recommender · 2023–2024
talkMartin Kleppmann | Kafka Summit SF 2018 Keynote (Is Kafka a Database?)Confluent, an IBM Company · 1 HN recommender · 2018–2020
talkScaling ZFS for NVMe - Allan Jude - EuroBSDcon 2022EuroBSDCon · 1 HN recommender · 2023–2025