Does changing the rating of a file change/invalidate its original hash?

[andycollings]

I am setting up my archive of well over 85, 000 photos so far. I'm laying them all down on empty hard drives, along with two backup drives and dvd's. I'm following the bucket model but making my buckets significantly larger than 4.3gb so that I can house at least one job per bucket (often the jobs--weddings--are 10+gb). I'm using spanburner to span the backup dvd's.

I'm using DNG converter to verify my files and plan now to use Image Verifier instead.

Question: I would like to generate the hash file now, at the inception of the archive after doing a quick dng conversion (1 sec/file w/o preview on my 8-core Mac Pro!). But since I know I'll be adding metadata to the files and changing the ratings, all of which are going to be embedded in the files: will these changes over time invalidate my original hashes that I'm archiving and comparing to over time?

I ran a test in IV on a folder of DNGs that I did the hash check and then updated the iptc and ratings and it did not generate any invalid files.
Just wanted to double-check with the experts!
Andy

[peterkrogh]

Andy,
Changing metadata will not make the files invalid, but it will cause a hash mismatch (essentially making the hash invalid).

I'd say that there is good reason to wait a few weeks or so before creating hashes for the whole archive.  Can't say more than that at the moment.

No problems with doing an integrity check, though.

Peter