Why does MT4/MT5 use different fimeframe files for tickdata?

[watchme]

MT4 uses different timeframe files (fxt format) for tickdata. I don't understand why. Tickdata is tickdata and timeframe data is timeframe data. Why would you mix those things? Does anyone know a good answer for this riddle?

[tickstory]

Hi Watchme,

MT4 uses FXT files for tick data and HST files for the bar/charting data. You can read more about the database in our Help manual by pressing F1 in the application or going to this link:

https://tickstory.com/help/tickstorylit ... ick_primer

Thanks.

[watchme]

Thank you for your fast response and the background info! I really appreciate this! However, the link contained few new info for me. I'm afraid you did not understand my question well and maybe this is not the most suitable forum to pose it. What I ment was that there is no difference between tick data for timeframe M1, M5 or whatever. Tick data and timeframe data are 2 different beasts. Metaquotes makes timeframe data from the received tick data and stores it into HST files, so for every timeframe you will have a different HST file. This is logical because they handle different data. However, tick data is not coupled in any way to a timeframe so the different FXT files for all timeframes must contain the same data except for some parts of the header. In my eyes this is just a terrible waste of HD space or do I miss the mark completely here?

[tickstory]

Hi Watchme,

It is a very inefficient use of space and unfortunately we can't say why Metaquotes chose this method. MT4 been around for a while, so I'm sure there was a good reason at the time

Regards.