Just throwing this out there... not sure if it would violate the license agreement Zorro has with FXCM.

Would it be possible to share downloaded history via torrent? If a handful of us started sharing, it makes downloading dramatically faster.

For example, I intend to download data for all 27 pairs that IBFX supports (from the real-acct FXCM feed)

EDIT: in thinking about this idea more, I think the "best" way to accomplish it would be for the Zorro project to be the seeding tracker of datafiles. Then those in the community willing to participate would simply keep their torrent client running. In this way the data originates from the Zorro project (and thus integrity maintained). It would reduce the bandwidth load on Zorro servers while greatly increasing the speed of download for endusers.

Do Zorro really have a special agreement with FXCM?

I think it is more a question whether FXCM allows redistribution of their price data.
It also assumes that historic data from FXCM is to be trusted (probably).
But I'm not sure whether Zorro guys have "washed" or verified the data they provide.

We have not cleaned up the FXCM data, so the data on the download page is the same data you get when directly downloading it.

Users of the FXCM API can use the data for their own purpose. This also includes the data from the Zorro download page. It will most likely also cover data shared via torrent IF the data is for Zorro and not publicly distributed for other purposes. But I do not see why a torrent should be faster than a download archive.

Torrents are significantly faster. A good example would be downloading a large file like Ubuntu using a torrent client. The main reason it's significantly faster is because you are downloading the total file in multiple simultaneous streams (and since no single stream could typically consume your available download bandwidth end-to-end).

If you (Zorro Project) provide the Torrent seed, then you control the source file (I believe that's how it works). Then, any participating members would simply need to run their torrent client to improve the bandwidth distribution.

I always prefer torrent for large downloads like Ubuntu. Without torrent on a ~700mb download you could be looking at 1hour+ transfer time from a single source. With a torrent, it could be fully downloaded in a matter of 10 minutes!

But you can also download a single file in multiple streams. There are many download managers that do that.

Yes you are correct... I forgot about that. The only drawback perhaps would be the limitation on Zorro's upstream pipe then.

Yeah, the torrent protocol has only one important purpose, to offload the server when it's upload capability (or available bandwidth) is inadequate compared to the interest in the content. In all other cases the torrent protocol doesn't bring any improvements, and will in fact slow things down.

From my experience, downloading Zorro stuff from jcl's servers is still plently fast.

Of course, if you have something additional to provide (like history for the more exotic instruments), which is not provided on the jcl's servers, making a torrent still makes sense.