Improve Powershell Performance to Generate a Random File

Question

I\'d like to user Powershell to create a random text file for use in basic system testing (upload, download, checksum, etc). I\'ve used the following articles and co

Answer 1

Instead of using Get-Random to generate the text as per mjolinor suggestions, I improved the speed by using GUIDs.

Function New-RandomFile {
    Param(
        $Path = '.', 
        $FileSize = 1kb, 
        $FileName = [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + '.txt'
        ) 
    (1..($FileSize/128)).foreach({-join ([guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid -Replace "-").SubString(1, 126) }) | set-content "$Path\$FileName"
}

I've ran both versions with Measure-Command. The original code took 1.36 seconds.

This one took 491 milliseconds. Running:

New-RandomFile -FileSize 1mb

UPDATE:

I've updated my function to use a ScriptBlock, so you can replace the 'NewGuid()' method with anything you want.

In this scenario, I make 1kb chunks, since I know I'm never creating smaller files. This improved the speed of my function drastically!

Set-Content forces a NewLine at the end, which is why you need to remove 2 Characters each time you write to file. I've replaced it with [io.file]::WriteAllText() instead.

Function New-RandomFile_1kChunks {
    Param(
        $Path = (Resolve-Path '.').Path, 
        $FileSize = 1kb, 
        $FileName = [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + '.txt'
        ) 

    $Chunk = { [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid -Replace "-" }

    $Chunks = [math]::Ceiling($FileSize/1kb)

    [io.file]::WriteAllText("$Path\$FileName","$(-Join (1..($Chunks)).foreach({ $Chunk.Invoke() }))")

    Write-Warning "New-RandomFile: $Path\$FileName"

}

If you dont care that all chunks are random, you can simply Invoke() the generation of the 1kb chunk once.. this improves the speed drastically, but won't make the entire file random.

Function New-RandomFile_Fast {
    Param(
        $Path = (Resolve-Path '.').Path, 
        $FileSize = 1kb, 
        $FileName = [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + '.txt'
        ) 

    $Chunk = { [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid +
               [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid + [guid]::NewGuid().Guid -Replace "-" }
    $Chunks = [math]::Ceiling($FileSize/1kb)
    $ChunkString = $Chunk.Invoke()

    [io.file]::WriteAllText("$Path\$FileName","$(-Join (1..($Chunks)).foreach({ $ChunkString }))")

    Write-Warning "New-RandomFile: $Path\$FileName"

}

Measure-Command all these changes to generate a 10mb file:

Executing New-RandomFile: 35.7688241 seconds.

Executing New-RandomFile_1kChunks: 25.1463777 seconds.

Executing New-RandomFile_Fast: 1.1626236 seconds.