I had an idea to use some hardlinks or NTFS junctions to create alternate organization styles to help people browse my shares. However, Fopnu doesn't realize they're the same files, so it hashes them all over again.

I suggest caching the inode info so that files with the same inode can reuse the file hash. I realize that Windows NTFS doesn't use quite the same kind of inode as Linux, but it does have some kind of identifier.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1866454/unique-file-identifier-in-windows

Thanks for your time

I also frequently use NTFS hardlinks in addition to symbolic and junction links.
Reducing hash time by caching inodes would be greatly beneficial for those who hard link tens of thousand of files for alternative directory structures.