Generate large files using PowerShell

 
 
  • Gérald Barré

If you need to create a large file with random data for testing purposes, you can use PowerShell or PowerShell Core to quickly generate it.

PowerShell
$path = Join-Path $pwd "test.txt"
$size = 1GB
$content = New-Object byte[] $size
(New-Object System.Random).NextBytes($content)

# Set-Content is very slow, use .NET method directly
[System.IO.File]::WriteAllBytes($path, $content)

If you want an empty file (fill with zeros) instead and you are on Windows, you can use fsutil:

C#
$size = 1GB
fsutil file createNew test.txt $size

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