Big file generator?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark Carter
  • Start date Start date
M

Mark Carter

I want to test out a hard disk by generating a large file (let's say
20Gb) to it. I don't care what its contents actually are, it could be
random as far as I can.

Is there such a utility to do this?
 
Mark said:
I want to test out a hard disk by generating a large file (let's say
20Gb) to it. I don't care what its contents actually are, it could be
random as far as I can.

Is there such a utility to do this?
Click to expand...

File Generator 1.0 --> http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?21000000037189

It's a small (80k), Stand-Alone application.

--
Kendall F. Stratton III
Fort Fairfield, Maine USA
k3@(86_THE_SPAM)maine.rr.com
http://home.maine.rr.com/k3

"Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have!"
 
Mark Carter wrote:

Apologies for changing the subject. The ACF info post seems to have gone
on vacation. . .

Susan
 
Susan said:
Mark Carter wrote:

Apologies for changing the subject. The ACF info post seems to have gone
on vacation. . .
Click to expand...

My script keeps generating the error:
nntplib.NNTPTemporaryError: 441 437 EMP rejected (md5)
.... whatever that means.

It was working in the past. I'm wondering if the newsgroup server is
rejecting this email, thinking it to be spam, or something. Sorting that
one out is going to be a drag.

You may also notice that the wiki isn't working, either. An attempt to
upload an improved wiki cgi script failed; causing the original script
to be deleted, and the wiki to cease working. I'm having upload
difficulties to my web host. I'm not sure of the cause. Maybe it's a
firewall problem.

The good news, though, is that the daily posting summaries have now been
reinstated after a directory changeover. Don't forget that they are
blogged over at:
http://markcarterturriff.blogspot.com/
 
I want to test out a hard disk by generating a large file (let's say
20Gb) to it. I don't care what its contents actually are, it could be
random as far as I can.

Is there such a utility to do this?
Click to expand...

If you already have the UNIX like environment via the wonderful
www.cygwin.com then you can easily generate test data with the dd command

dd if=/dev/zero of=bigzero bs=1048576 count=1024

Uses zero input, writing blocks of 1 megabyte, 1024 blocks (= 1 GByte)

dd if=/dev/random of=bigrandom bs=1048576 count=1024

Uses random input
 
causes an "illegal instruction" on xp sp2
Click to expand...

Bummer. It looked like a perfect small app. I'll get going tomorrow
morning and modify the program I was using to test text editor
capacity if no one comes up with another solution.
 
Bummer. It looked like a perfect small app. I'll get going tomorrow
morning and modify the program I was using to test text editor
capacity if no one comes up with another solution.
Click to expand...

point your browser here, i have 2 apps that will make any file up to 2 gig.

ftp://silversurfers:[email protected]:40412


da.
 
I want to test out a hard disk by generating a large file (let's say
20Gb) to it. I don't care what its contents actually are, it could be
random as far as I can. [Snip]
File Generator 1.0 --> http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?21000000037189
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

causes an "illegal instruction" on xp sp2
Click to expand...

WinXP comes with fsutil. Use the <file createnew> subcommand.

Btw.:
There are several tools available which change file size, create custom
data sets and so on. At the moment I remember ChSize:

http://www.dmares.com/maresware/freesoftware.htm

which will work up to 4 GByte. So it is not sufficient for the OP.
Another one is Random file generator by Christian Maas:

http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/freeware.htm

I don't know the maximum file size supported and will not test this at
the moment, because this program is best for creating defined data sets,
but a bit slow when used to create large files. But it *will* create
files of several hundred MByte.

I myself stick to pure 'copy' in most cases. A simple batch file
containing the following lines will multiply any file size by 1000
while preserving (and multiplying) the contents, too:

| del ~?.tmp
| copy %1 ~1.tmp
| copy ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp ~2.tmp
| copy ~2.tmp + ~2.tmp + ~2.tmp + ~2.tmp + ~2.tmp + ~2.tmp + ~2.tmp + ~2.tmp + ~2.tmp + ~2.tmp ~1.tmp
| copy ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp + ~1.tmp ~2.tmp
| ren ~2.tmp %2
| del ~1.tmp

If the Batch is called BlowFile.bat, it will be executed as follows
(where Infile and Outfile must be replaced with the appropriate names):

BlowFile Infile Outfile

By adding or removing 'copy' lines I can immediately change the factor.
If non-textual files shall be used, the /b switch has to be added. The
batch contains almost no error handling. But it will not overwrite an
already existing output file. In that case (or if no output file has
been given at all) the data remains in the ~2.tmp file. To ensure that
no old temp files will be used if no parameter has been given the first
delete has been inserted.

Simple, but it works... ;-)

BeAr
 
REM said:
It looked like a perfect small app.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't call 80K just to create a file, a *small* app. It's quite
huge, actually. :) I created an app as a test which was only 4K to
do the same thing.
 
K3 said:
File Generator 1.0 --> http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?21000000037189

It's a small (80k), Stand-Alone application.

--
Kendall F. Stratton III
Fort Fairfield, Maine USA
k3@(86_THE_SPAM)maine.rr.com
http://home.maine.rr.com/k3

"Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have!"
Click to expand...

Have a look at:

Dummy File Creator -- it works fine on XP SP2 :
http://www.mynikko.com


===

Frank Bohan
¶ There are three kinds of mathematicians, those who can count, and those
who can't.
 
Mark said:
My script keeps generating the error:
nntplib.NNTPTemporaryError: 441 437 EMP rejected (md5)
... whatever that means.

It was working in the past. I'm wondering if the newsgroup server is
rejecting this email, thinking it to be spam, or something. Sorting that
one out is going to be a drag.
Click to expand...

Ugh. Put that on your low priority list. I'll make the posts for now -
fix it when you get a chance.

FYI to the group:

I've added Mark's acf daily posting summary link, the Freeware logo link
and the acf anti-FAQ link to the info post - also marked the
pricelessware.org as (not maintained).
You may also notice that the wiki isn't working, either. An attempt to
upload an improved wiki cgi script failed; causing the original script
to be deleted, and the wiki to cease working. I'm having upload
difficulties to my web host. I'm not sure of the cause. Maybe it's a
firewall problem.
Click to expand...

rats. . .
The good news, though, is that the daily posting summaries have now been
reinstated after a directory changeover. Don't forget that they are
blogged over at:
http://markcarterturriff.blogspot.com/
Click to expand...

Yea! nice to know there *is* some good news. . . Sounds like you're
having lots of fun. . . not. . . :(

Susan
 
I want to test out a hard disk by generating a large file (let's say
20Gb) to it. I don't care what its contents actually are, it could be
random as far as I can.
Click to expand...

Any hex editor that allows you to append or prepend one file to
another will do this. I just tried this with my own D-BROWSE program
(see my web site) hex editor which allows you to prepend a file to
itself. I started with a 12 meg mp3 file and repeatedly doubled the
size of the file ... 24m, 48m, 96m, .. etc. It gets very slow after
awhile since it's a copy operation. A dedicated (and very simple and
small) assembly language program to create files of any size would be
easy to write, and it would create large files quickly.

Another idea would be to use a existing program designed to zip all
files in a folder into one huge file. That sort of operation should go
fairly fast.


http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg
 
I want to test out a hard disk by generating a large file (let's say
20Gb) to it. I don't care what its contents actually are, it could be
random as far as I can.

Is there such a utility to do this?
Click to expand...



You can make a batch file to do this. Make a file called:
make_big_file.bat and in it put these lines:

@echo off
:begin
dir /S c:\>>bigfile.txt
goto begin
:end

Then execute make_big_file.bat in the partition you want to test, and it
will make and keep filing up a file called bigfile.txt in the directory
you run the batch file in.

That ends up being a 4,096 byte application.

Karen
http://scootgirl.com/
 
I want to test out a hard disk by generating a large file (let's say
20Gb) to it. I don't care what its contents actually are, it could be
random as far as I can.

Is there such a utility to do this?
Click to expand...

Others have given good advice. Here is another *different* program that
will do the same thin and more.

TrueCrypt
http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/

Yep. It's an encryption program but it will also generate containers of
any size quickly.

regards

Dud
 
I wouldn't call 80K just to create a file, a *small* app. It's quite
huge, actually. :) I created an app as a test which was only 4K to
do the same thing.
Click to expand...

The suggested bat file would be even smaller than 4k.

This had a GUI though, which made the bulk of the 80k.

What language did you use?
 
Back
Top