big-file-gen

Small Python CLI tools for creating and reading large files. Useful for storage testing, transfer checks, and dumb-fun disk abuse.

What it does

create large binary files filled with zeros
optionally create sparse files instead
read files back and measure throughput
optionally compute SHA256 while reading
no third-party dependencies

Usage

Create a file

python make_big_file.py <output> <size> [--chunk-size SIZE] [--sparse] [--force] [--quiet]

Examples:

python make_big_file.py test.bin 15GB
python make_big_file.py dump.dat 1.5TiB --chunk-size 128MB
python make_big_file.py tiny.bin 500MB --quiet
python make_big_file.py sparse.img 20GB --sparse
python make_big_file.py test.bin 15GB --force

Read a file

python read_big_file.py <input> [--chunk-size SIZE] [--hash] [--quiet]

Examples:

python read_big_file.py test.bin
python read_big_file.py dump.dat --chunk-size 128MB --hash
python read_big_file.py tiny.bin --quiet

Size formats

Binary units are supported:

B
KB, MB, GB, TB, PB
KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB, PiB

Plain numbers are treated as bytes.

Exit codes

0 success
1 failure
130 interrupted

Requirements

Python 3.8+
enough disk space for real writes

Notes

--sparse is handy when you want a huge file without actually burning the disk.
--force overwrites an existing output file (without it, existing files are protected).
--hash is SHA256, because anything weaker would be cosplay.

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