Craig Windell, a QCIF eResearch Analyst at QUT, outlines how to transfer large data files with confidence.
Transferring large data files? Want to have confidence they arrive matching the source file?
Have a look at md5sum.
md5sum creates a hash file. A hash file can be considered a digital fingerprint of the file.
How does md5sum help?
Firstly, you create a hash, or digital fingerprint of the file with a command, such as:
md5sum file01.fasta > file01.md5
Send both to your preferred service, say Cloudstor.
At the other end, after download, use md5sum again to check the file matches the hash: md5sum -c file01.md5
The command will print OK if they match. If they don’t match, you can try a download again, or another upload.
md5sum is most likely available on your Linux or Mac computer, and easy to install on Windows.
This article was first published on 18/12/2019.