In an effort to reduce data storage requirements, a company devices to hash every file and eliminate duplicates. The data processing routines are time sensitive so the hashing algorithm is fast and…

MD5 is fast and widely supported but has known collision vulnerabilities, meaning different files could theoretically produce the same hash, which compromises the reliability required for accurate deduplication.

The SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm) family, which includes algorithms like SHA-256, is widely supported across various systems and provides significantly better collision resistance than MD5, making it more reliable for accurately identifying unique files for deduplication while still being sufficiently fast for time-sensitive operations.

RIPEMD is a family of cryptographic hash functions, but it is generally less widely supported across various systems compared to the MD5 or SHA families, making it less ideal for broad deployment.

AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) is a symmetric block cipher used for encryption and decryption, not a hashing algorithm, and therefore cannot be used for file deduplication.