with open(file, "rb") as infile:
     data_arr = []
     start = time()
     while True:
         data = infile.read(6)
         if not data: break
         data_arr.append(data)

import timeit


def read_original(filename):
    with open(filename, "rb") as infile:
        data_arr = []
        while True:
            data = infile.read(6)
            if not data:
                break
            data_arr.append(data)
    return data_arr


# the bigger the file, the more likely this is to cause python to crash
def read_better(filename):
    with open(filename, "rb") as infile:
        # read everything into memory at once
        data = infile.readlines()
        # separate string into 6-byte chunks
        data_arr = [data[i:i+6] for i in range(0, len(data), 6)]
    return data_arr

# no faster than the original, but allows you to work on each piece without loading the whole into memory
def read_iter(filename):
    with open(filename, "rb") as infile:
        data = infile.read(6)
        while data:
            yield data
            data = infile.read(6)


def main():
    # 93.8688215 s
    tm = timeit.timeit(stmt="read_original('test/oraociei12.dll')", setup="from __main__ import read_original", number=10)
    print(tm)
    # 8.579144 s
    tm = timeit.timeit(stmt="read_better('test/oraociei12.dll')", setup="from __main__ import read_better", number=10)
    print(tm)
    # 103.0508528 s
    tm = timeit.timeit(stmt="[x for x in read_iter('test/oraociei12.dll')]", setup="from __main__ import read_iter", number=10)
    print(tm)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()