I would like to store hashes for approximately 2 billion strings. For that purpose I would like to use as less storage as possible.
Consider an ideal hashing algorithm which returns hash as series of hexadecimal digits (like an md5 hash). As far as i understand the idea this means that i need hash to be not less and not more than 8 symbols in length. Because such hash would be capable of hashing 4+ billion (16 * 16 * 16 * 16 * 16 * 16 * 16 * 16) distinct strings.
So I'd like to know whether it is it safe to cut hash to a certain length to save space ? (hashes, of course, should not collide)
Yes/No/Maybe - i would appreciate answers with explanations or links to related studies.
P.s. - i know i can test whether 8-character hash would be ok to store 2 billion strings. But i need to compare 2 billion hashes with their 2 billion cutted versions. It doesn't seem trivial to me so i'd better ask before i do that.