Update more than 5000 Items in a list using PowerShell in SharePoint 2013

Question

I need to write a PowerShell script to update a choice column with a specific value in all the items of a List. Following is the main part of the script

$siteUrl = "http://mySharePointSiteUrl/"    

$SPWeb = Get-SPWeb $siteUrl

$SPList = $SPWeb.Lists["ListName"]

$listItems = $SPList.Items;

foreach($item in $listItems){
    $item["ChoiceColumnName"] = "Choice1"
    $item.update();
}

This approach works for list with small number items, but will it be efficient for list having more than 5000 items?
Is there any other way for the same ?

Answer 1

Change $item.update(); to $item.SystemUpdate(false) which won't increase the version number. 5000 items shouldn't be a strugle for SharePoint if you don't have any custom event receivers attached. In that case you could pause the script after every update for a part of the second to catch up with SharePoint (don't think it's necessary, tho) - Start-Sleep -m 100 (that would pause the script for 100ms). Dispose of the SPWeb at the end by calling $SPWeb.Dispose(); and you'll be all good to go.

Answer 2

As said, updating some 5000 items should no be a problem. However, you could reduce "server stress" by using the bulk updates.

Have a look at SPWeb.ProcessBatchData