How to make Microsoft Storage Explorer calculate ContentMD5

Question

I am using MS Storage Explorer (version 1.7) to upload files to a blob container in my Azure storage account. As a test, I made two copies of a file, uploaded one as a block blob and one as an append blob.

Afterward, I checked properties on each file; the one I uploaded as block had the ContentMD5 property set, but the one I uploaded as append did not have the property set.

Is this expected behavior? I would like to have ContentMD5 automatically set, so I don't have to calculate it and set it myself. Where am I going wrong?

Answer 1

Since the ContentMD5 is calculated at client side, it's a good idea to calculate and set the property for block blob, since block blob content is fixed after calling PutBlockList.

However, it's inappropriate to set the property for append blob, since append blob content can be altered after being appended. After that, ContentMD5 set previously will become incorrect. Further more, append blob can be appended by multiple clients simultaneously, which means the value calculated from one client is not reliable at all.