Generate large files using PowerShell

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.

$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:

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

Do you have a question or a suggestion about this post? Contact me!