Disabling quick-hashes

The best solution for finding and removing duplicate files.
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Callistemon
Posts: 85
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2021 5:15 am

Disabling quick-hashes

Post by Callistemon »

Quick-hashes reduce the time necessary to scan when most of the files are not duplicates, since it eliminates the need to calculate a full SHA-256 hash on all files, but quick-hashing increases the amount of time required to scan between two disks when almost all of the files are duplicates. Every file has to be scanned twice, and if the disk is slow, then quick-hashing may double the time necessary to scan the disks if each file must be read twice. Is there any way to disable quick-hashing and immediately start full-hashing?
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therube
Posts: 614
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2011 4:38 pm

Re: Disabling quick-hashes

Post by therube »

I'm not seeing anything about "quick hashes", only whether hashes are cached or not?

(And not know quite how the hashes work), to me it would seem that if the hash for a file has been cached, once, then that file need not be hashed again (unless it has "changed" [with whatever criteria determines that]). So in that respect, having a hash cache would, in general, seem to be beneficial.

Now, if you don't need a crypto hash, faster hash algorithms are coming (in version 5), viewtopic.php?t=2501&start=10.
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