Oh the sha-256 hashes are precisely what I used for a quick script I put together to parse through various backups of my work laptop in different places (tool changes and laziness). I had 10 different backups going back 4 years, and I wanted to make sure I - 1) preserved all unique files, 2) preserve the latest folder structure they showed up in.

Using sha256 was a no-brainer, at least for me.