Shadowprotect Question

[PaulB]

I'm aware of the purpose of MD5 check-sums in ensuring the integrity of data files. But are they actually needed when taking Shadowprotect images and incrementals?

[Bigaldoc]

It's been a long time ago, Paul, but I read somewhere in the SP forums that they aren't necessary. I've had 'em turned off ever since and have restored whole images and single files without any problems.

In case you've not seen where it is, it's under the Advanced button of the Options screen during the creation of or editing of a backup job.

[John Gray]

My experience is the same as Al's - I have restored successfully without having any MD5 files.

[PaulB]

Thank you both. That's exactly what I wanted to know. The Shadowprotect documentation is rather vague in this respect. It only mentions how to generate (or not) the MD5 file with no mention of the merits or consequences of doing so.

[StuartR]

I am not familiar with ShadowProtect, but the normal use of an MD5 file is to allow you to verify whether a different, larger, file has changed. The idea is that you can publish the MD5 file as a simple piece of text, or copy it to offline storage. Later you can compute a new MD5 file from the same source and compare this with the one you saved.

[PaulB]

In this case, the prospect of a "different, larger, file" changing is extremely remote. The files in question are backups taken with Shadowprotect of my local disks (both full images and incrementals) stored on local external HDDs. The likelihood of a third party tampering with them is zero.