Disclosed is a system and method for improving database memory consumption and performance using compression of time stamp columns. A number of time stamps of a time series is received. The time stamps have a start time, and are separated by an equal increment of time that defines an interval. The start time and interval are stored in a dictionary of a column store of a database. An index is generated in the column store of the database, the index having a number of index vectors. Using the index vectors, each time stamp of the number of time stamps can be calculated from the start time stored in the dictionary and the position in the time series based on the interval stored in the dictionary.