What do you consider large files? Isn’t the article size usually limited to something like 1mb (it’s been a while since I used Usenet)?

So it would technically be about the number of articles rather than the eventual size of the combined archive? At the core it’s all still text right?

There weren open test servers though and sites with limited trials but no data limit.

That’s what I used back in the day. Sadly all these trial offers are gone now and demand credit card information upfront.