who honestly and do you even need to run .md5 files

[willndmb]

ssia
if you DL a torrent do you really need to run the md5?
the torrent will not start to seed and give you 100% if it didn't dl exact correct?
so am i wasting my time or is it still needed
thanks

[darby]

most sites require them
when you create a .torrent file to upload, the file is created from what data you have... correct or not
so you could have corrupt data, but data would still be 100% present
the md5 would check if the data was correct, not just being 100% present
I honestly don't run them, but it might not be a bad idea for seeding purposes later 

[twatts]

I check them all.  Just because someone says their file is good doesn't mean that it actually is...  They may not verify their own files before seeding, and/or the filesets may be incomplete.  Very, very rarely, I'll find something amiss.  The last one was a missing file.  At first glance, it looked fine (it was the alst track on a disc so I didn't notice a missing track #).  But once I checked the MD5, it told me I was missing a track. 

Terry

[willndmb]

good points
i didn't think about the torrent file being bad yet still telling me i was 100%

[F.O.Bean]

i have always used MKWact to make my md5's

[rhinowing]

I still use mkwact. can't beat being able to do it with a simple right click

[Belexes]

I use Traders Little Helper for this. http://tlh.easytree.org/

Wonderful program.

[F.O.Bean]

I use Traders Little Helper for this. http://tlh.easytree.org/

Wonderful program.

U use TLH to make the checksum files, but I make an .md5 for my 24-bit raw/mastered files

[Seth01]

I always check .md5's & ffp's using TLH.  You'd be surprised how often they don't pass.

[stevetoney]

FWIW, I'm definitely in the 'MD5's are necessary' camp. 

[hi and lo]

FWIW, I'm definitely in the 'MD5's are necessary' camp.

Yup! MD5's are the only checksum we use that will guarantee a fileset is an exact match to the original release, among other benefits.

[page]

I'll check md5 files for old shn sets, but otherwise I use the ffp values instead of doing a md5 of the flac file since tags can change without affecting the audio stream.

good points
i didn't think about the torrent file being bad yet still telling me i was 100%

I've had it happen once, surprised me a bit.

[ArchivalAudio]

I thought that with FLAC using the ffp's
the SHN MD5 is vastly unnecessary
as even on etree, they seem to state either ffp's or MD5
as well as a handful of other torrent sites

maybe I am confused, which happens more often as I get older.
--ian

[faninor]

ssia
if you DL a torrent do you really need to run the md5?
the torrent will not start to seed and give you 100% if it didn't dl exact correct?
so am i wasting my time or is it still needed
thanks

As long as you're still seeding the torrent, it will do a hash check which is fairly analogous to md5 (with the added bonus that if anything doesn't match, it will re-download that segment). So you're wasting your time as long as you're still seeding that torrent.

Once you've copied the data to another hard drive, backed up to a DVD, or whatever, md5 (or ffp for flac, if you want the flexibility to change your tagging and still validate okay) is your friend. Windows is supposed to do some redundancy check on file copies, but still I've seen failures numerous time after a file copy, which is why I pretty much always copy, validate, and delete instead of just moving files, especially when moving a large amount of data in one shot.