Database File Limits

These tools have been developed for legacy versions of Investor/RT (13 or older) which were 32-bit applications. Investor/RT14 and higher use a 64-bit database, removing past size limitations of earlier 32 bit versions

Diagnosing Historical Database Usage

If you see a warning message advising you that a historical database file is approaching the file size limit, follow the steps below to examine the tick data and intraday bar data retention settings for the symbols you follow, along with the actual tick and bar data storage each symbol is using on the database. Follow these steps:

  1. Go to File > Open > QuotePage or Alt+3 and open the .All Symbols system quotepage.
  2. Right-click on any column heading and choose Add Column.
  3. Add these four columns to the quotepage: Bar Data Storage, Tick Data Storage, Retain Intra and Retain TickData.

The .All Symbols quotepage will then look something like this

qp-retain.png

This quotepage allows you to see the storage usage (in MB) of each instrument along with each instrument's historical data retention settings (in days). A single click in either the Tick or Bar Data Storage column heading will sort the page by that column. To pin point which symbols are consuming the most storage, click the heading until you see the symbols ranked highest to lowest.

Adjusting the Historical Data Retention Settings

To adjust the Historical Data Retention Settings for a given Instrument, click inside either the Retain Intra or Retain TickData cell for that symbol in the quotepage and enter a new value. For instance, if you want to change the Intraday retention settings for the symbol "SPY" from ALL to 300, highlight the text ALL and enter 300and press the enter key. Repeat for any instrument(s) that are taking up too much space. If you determine that all symbols are taking up approximately the same amount of space, it is probably the case that your default tick data or bar data retention is set too high for the number of symbols you are tracking. Instead of adjusting each instrument individually, you can instead go to Setup > Preferences > Historical Data and set the default intraday or tick data retention globally for all symbols.

Viewing the Revised Database Size

After making changes to individual or global retention settings you may determine the impact of those changes by following these steps.

  1. Go to Data > Database Wizard or Alt+U to open the Database Wizard window.
  2. Click the Purge Historical Data button. This will purge any historical data older than the revised retention settings.
  3. In the Database Compression section of the wizard, ensure that the box Intraday Data is checked, then click Compress Selected Databases.
  4. Go to File > Functions and choose Inventory Data Storage. The .All Symbols quotepage will then reflect the revised storage usage for each symbol. Sort the page as before.