You can use Convert.ToHexString starting with .NET 5.
There's also a method for the reverse operation: Convert.FromHexString.

For older versions of .NET you can either use:

public static string ByteArrayToString(byte[] ba)
{
  StringBuilder hex = new StringBuilder(ba.Length * 2);
  foreach (byte b in ba)
    hex.AppendFormat("{0:x2}", b);
  return hex.ToString();
}

or:

public static string ByteArrayToString(byte[] ba)
{
  return BitConverter.ToString(ba).Replace("-","");
}

There are even more variants of doing it, for example here.

The reverse conversion would go like this:

public static byte[] StringToByteArray(String hex)
{
  int NumberChars = hex.Length;
  byte[] bytes = new byte[NumberChars / 2];
  for (int i = 0; i < NumberChars; i += 2)
    bytes[i / 2] = Convert.ToByte(hex.Substring(i, 2), 16);
  return bytes;
}

Using Substring is the best option in combination with Convert.ToByte. See this answer for more information. If you need better performance, you must avoid Convert.ToByte before you can drop SubString.

Performance Analysis

Note: new leader as of 2015-08-20.

I ran each of the various conversion methods through some crude Stopwatch performance testing, a run with a random sentence (n=61, 1000 iterations) and a run with a Project Gutenburg text (n=1,238,957, 150 iterations). Here are the results, roughly from fastest to slowest. All measurements are in ticks (10,000 ticks = 1 ms) and all relative notes are compared to the [slowest] StringBuilder implementation. For the code used, see below or the test framework repo where I now maintain the code for running this.

Disclaimer

WARNING: Do not rely on these stats for anything concrete; they are simply a sample run of sample data. If you really need top-notch performance, please test these methods in an environment representative of your production needs with data representative of what you will use.

Results

• Lookup by byte unsafe (via CodesInChaos) (added to test repo by airbreather)
  • Text: 4,727.85 (105.2X)
  • Sentence: 0.28 (99.7X)
• Lookup by byte (via CodesInChaos)
  • Text: 10,853.96 (45.8X faster)
  • Sentence: 0.65 (42.7X faster)
• Byte Manipulation 2 (via CodesInChaos)
  • Text: 12,967.69 (38.4X faster)
  • Sentence: 0.73 (37.9X faster)
• Byte Manipulation (via Waleed Eissa)
  • Text: 16,856.64 (29.5X faster)
  • Sentence: 0.70 (39.5X faster)
• Lookup/Shift (via Nathan Moinvaziri)
  • Text: 23,201.23 (21.4X faster)
  • Sentence: 1.24 (22.3X faster)
• Lookup by nibble (via Brian Lambert)
  • Text: 23,879.41 (20.8X faster)
  • Sentence: 1.15 (23.9X faster)
• BitConverter (via Tomalak)
  • Text: 113,269.34 (4.4X faster)
  • Sentence: 9.98 (2.8X faster)
• {SoapHexBinary}.ToString (via Mykroft)
  • Text: 178,601.39 (2.8X faster)
  • Sentence: 10.68 (2.6X faster)
• {byte}.ToString("X2") (using foreach) (derived from Will Dean's answer)
  • Text: 308,805.38 (2.4X faster)
  • Sentence: 16.89 (2.4X faster)
• {byte}.ToString("X2") (using {IEnumerable}.Aggregate, requires System.Linq) (via Mark)
  • Text: 352,828.20 (2.1X faster)
  • Sentence: 16.87 (2.4X faster)
• Array.ConvertAll (using string.Join) (via Will Dean)
  • Text: 675,451.57 (1.1X faster)
  • Sentence: 17.95 (2.2X faster)
• Array.ConvertAll (using string.Concat, requires .NET 4.0) (via Will Dean)
  • Text: 752,078.70 (1.0X faster)
  • Sentence: 18.28 (2.2X faster)
• {StringBuilder}.AppendFormat (using foreach) (via Tomalak)
  • Text: 672,115.77 (1.1X faster)
  • Sentence: 36.82 (1.1X faster)
• {StringBuilder}.AppendFormat (using {IEnumerable}.Aggregate, requires System.Linq) (derived from Tomalak's answer)
  • Text: 718,380.63 (1.0X faster)
  • Sentence: 39.71 (1.0X faster)

Lookup tables have taken the lead over byte manipulation. Basically, there is some form of precomputing what any given nibble or byte will be in hex. Then, as you rip through the data, you simply look up the next portion to see what hex string it would be. That value is then added to the resulting string output in some fashion. For a long time byte manipulation, potentially harder to read by some developers, was the top-performing approach.

Your best bet is still going to be finding some representative data and trying it out in a production-like environment. If you have different memory constraints, you may prefer a method with fewer allocations to one that would be faster but consume more memory.

Testing Code

Feel free to play with the testing code I used. A version is included here but feel free to clone the repo and add your own methods. Please submit a pull request if you find anything interesting or want to help improve the testing framework it uses.

1. Add the new static method (Func<byte[], string>) to /Tests/ConvertByteArrayToHexString/Test.cs.
2. Add that method's name to the TestCandidates return value in that same class.
3. Make sure you are running the input version you want, sentence or text, by toggling the comments in GenerateTestInput in that same class.
4. Hit F5 and wait for the output (an HTML dump is also generated in the /bin folder).

static string ByteArrayToHexStringViaStringJoinArrayConvertAll(byte[] bytes) {
    return string.Join(string.Empty, Array.ConvertAll(bytes, b => b.ToString("X2")));
}
static string ByteArrayToHexStringViaStringConcatArrayConvertAll(byte[] bytes) {
    return string.Concat(Array.ConvertAll(bytes, b => b.ToString("X2")));
}
static string ByteArrayToHexStringViaBitConverter(byte[] bytes) {
    string hex = BitConverter.ToString(bytes);
    return hex.Replace("-", "");
}
static string ByteArrayToHexStringViaStringBuilderAggregateByteToString(byte[] bytes) {
    return bytes.Aggregate(new StringBuilder(bytes.Length * 2), (sb, b) => sb.Append(b.ToString("X2"))).ToString();
}
static string ByteArrayToHexStringViaStringBuilderForEachByteToString(byte[] bytes) {
    StringBuilder hex = new StringBuilder(bytes.Length * 2);
    foreach (byte b in bytes)
        hex.Append(b.ToString("X2"));
    return hex.ToString();
}
static string ByteArrayToHexStringViaStringBuilderAggregateAppendFormat(byte[] bytes) {
    return bytes.Aggregate(new StringBuilder(bytes.Length * 2), (sb, b) => sb.AppendFormat("{0:X2}", b)).ToString();
}
static string ByteArrayToHexStringViaStringBuilderForEachAppendFormat(byte[] bytes) {
    StringBuilder hex = new StringBuilder(bytes.Length * 2);
    foreach (byte b in bytes)
        hex.AppendFormat("{0:X2}", b);
    return hex.ToString();
}
static string ByteArrayToHexViaByteManipulation(byte[] bytes) {
    char[] c = new char[bytes.Length * 2];
    byte b;
    for (int i = 0; i < bytes.Length; i++) {
        b = ((byte)(bytes[i] >> 4));
        c[i * 2] = (char)(b > 9 ? b + 0x37 : b + 0x30);
        b = ((byte)(bytes[i] & 0xF));
        c[i * 2 + 1] = (char)(b > 9 ? b + 0x37 : b + 0x30);
    }
    return new string(c);
}
static string ByteArrayToHexViaByteManipulation2(byte[] bytes) {
    char[] c = new char[bytes.Length * 2];
    int b;
    for (int i = 0; i < bytes.Length; i++) {
        b = bytes[i] >> 4;
        c[i * 2] = (char)(55 + b + (((b - 10) >> 31) & -7));
        b = bytes[i] & 0xF;
        c[i * 2 + 1] = (char)(55 + b + (((b - 10) >> 31) & -7));
    }
    return new string(c);
}
static string ByteArrayToHexViaSoapHexBinary(byte[] bytes) {
    SoapHexBinary soapHexBinary = new SoapHexBinary(bytes);
    return soapHexBinary.ToString();
}
static string ByteArrayToHexViaLookupAndShift(byte[] bytes) {
    StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder(bytes.Length * 2);
    string hexAlphabet = "0123456789ABCDEF";
    foreach (byte b in bytes) {
        result.Append(hexAlphabet[(int)(b >> 4)]);
        result.Append(hexAlphabet[(int)(b & 0xF)]);
    }
    return result.ToString();
}
static readonly uint* _lookup32UnsafeP = (uint*)GCHandle.Alloc(_Lookup32, GCHandleType.Pinned).AddrOfPinnedObject();
static string ByteArrayToHexViaLookup32UnsafeDirect(byte[] bytes) {
    var lookupP = _lookup32UnsafeP;
    var result = new string((char)0, bytes.Length * 2);
    fixed (byte* bytesP = bytes)
    fixed (char* resultP = result) {
        uint* resultP2 = (uint*)resultP;
        for (int i = 0; i < bytes.Length; i++) {
            resultP2[i] = lookupP[bytesP[i]];
        }
    }
    return result;
}
static uint[] _Lookup32 = Enumerable.Range(0, 255).Select(i => {
    string s = i.ToString("X2");
    return ((uint)s[0]) + ((uint)s[1] << 16);
}).ToArray();
static string ByteArrayToHexViaLookupPerByte(byte[] bytes) {
    var result = new char[bytes.Length * 2];
    for (int i = 0; i < bytes.Length; i++)
    {
        var val = _Lookup32[bytes[i]];
        result[2*i] = (char)val;
        result[2*i + 1] = (char) (val >> 16);
    }
    return new string(result);
}
static string ByteArrayToHexViaLookup(byte[] bytes) {
    string[] hexStringTable = new string[] {
        "00", "01", "02", "03", "04", "05", "06", "07", "08", "09", "0A", "0B", "0C", "0D", "0E", "0F",
        "10", "11", "12", "13", "14", "15", "16", "17", "18", "19", "1A", "1B", "1C", "1D", "1E", "1F",
        "20", "21", "22", "23", "24", "25", "26", "27", "28", "29", "2A", "2B", "2C", "2D", "2E", "2F",
        "30", "31", "32", "33", "34", "35", "36", "37", "38", "39", "3A", "3B", "3C", "3D", "3E", "3F",
        "40", "41", "42", "43", "44", "45", "46", "47", "48", "49", "4A", "4B", "4C", "4D", "4E", "4F",
        "50", "51", "52", "53", "54", "55", "56", "57", "58", "59", "5A", "5B", "5C", "5D", "5E", "5F",
        "60", "61", "62", "63", "64", "65", "66", "67", "68", "69", "6A", "6B", "6C", "6D", "6E", "6F",
        "70", "71", "72", "73", "74", "75", "76", "77", "78", "79", "7A", "7B", "7C", "7D", "7E", "7F",
        "80", "81", "82", "83", "84", "85", "86", "87", "88", "89", "8A", "8B", "8C", "8D", "8E", "8F",
        "90", "91", "92", "93", "94", "95", "96", "97", "98", "99", "9A", "9B", "9C", "9D", "9E", "9F",
        "A0", "A1", "A2", "A3", "A4", "A5", "A6", "A7", "A8", "A9", "AA", "AB", "AC", "AD", "AE", "AF",
        "B0", "B1", "B2", "B3", "B4", "B5", "B6", "B7", "B8", "B9", "BA", "BB", "BC", "BD", "BE", "BF",
        "C0", "C1", "C2", "C3", "C4", "C5", "C6", "C7", "C8", "C9", "CA", "CB", "CC", "CD", "CE", "CF",
        "D0", "D1", "D2", "D3", "D4", "D5", "D6", "D7", "D8", "D9", "DA", "DB", "DC", "DD", "DE", "DF",
        "E0", "E1", "E2", "E3", "E4", "E5", "E6", "E7", "E8", "E9", "EA", "EB", "EC", "ED", "EE", "EF",
        "F0", "F1", "F2", "F3", "F4", "F5", "F6", "F7", "F8", "F9", "FA", "FB", "FC", "FD", "FE", "FF",
    };
    StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder(bytes.Length * 2);
    foreach (byte b in bytes) {
        result.Append(hexStringTable[b]);
    }
    return result.ToString();
}

Update (2010-01-13)

Added Waleed's answer to analysis. Quite fast.

Update (2011-10-05)

Added string.Concat Array.ConvertAll variant for completeness (requires .NET 4.0). On par with string.Join version.

Update (2012-02-05)

Test repo includes more variants such as StringBuilder.Append(b.ToString("X2")). None upset the results any. foreach is faster than {IEnumerable}.Aggregate, for instance, but BitConverter still wins.

Update (2012-04-03)

Added Mykroft's SoapHexBinary answer to analysis, which took over third place.

Update (2013-01-15)

Added CodesInChaos's byte manipulation answer, which took over first place (by a large margin on large blocks of text).

Update (2013-05-23)

Added Nathan Moinvaziri's lookup answer and the variant from Brian Lambert's blog. Both rather fast, but not taking the lead on the test machine I used (AMD Phenom 9750).

Update (2014-07-31)

Added @CodesInChaos's new byte-based lookup answer. It appears to have taken the lead on both the sentence tests and the full-text tests.

Update (2015-08-20)

Added airbreather's optimizations and unsafe variant to this answer's repo. If you want to play in the unsafe game, you can get some huge performance gains over any of the prior top winners on both short strings and large texts.

If you want more flexibility than BitConverter, but don't want those clunky 1990s-style explicit loops, then you can do:

String.Join(String.Empty, Array.ConvertAll(bytes, x => x.ToString("X2")));

Or, if you're using .NET 4.0:

String.Concat(Array.ConvertAll(bytes, x => x.ToString("X2")));

(The latter from a comment on the original post.)

You can use the BitConverter.ToString method:

byte[] bytes = {0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256}
Console.WriteLine( BitConverter.ToString(bytes));

Output:

00-01-02-04-08-10-20-40-80-FF

More information: BitConverter.ToString Method (Byte[])

I just encountered the very same problem today, and I came across this code:

private static string ByteArrayToHex(byte[] barray)
{
    char[] c = new char[barray.Length * 2];
    byte b;
    for (int i = 0; i < barray.Length; ++i)
    {
        b = ((byte)(barray[i] >> 4));
        c[i * 2] = (char)(b > 9 ? b + 0x37 : b + 0x30);
        b = ((byte)(barray[i] & 0xF));
        c[i * 2 + 1] = (char)(b > 9 ? b + 0x37 : b + 0x30);
    }
    return new string(c);
}

Source: Forum post byte[] Array to Hex String (see the post by PZahra). I modified the code a little to remove the 0x prefix.

I did some performance testing to the code and it was almost eight times faster than using BitConverter.ToString() (the fastest according to patridge's post).

As of .NET 5 RC2 you can use:

• Convert.ToHexString(byte[] inArray) which returns a string and
• Convert.FromHexString(string s) which returns a byte[].

Overloads are available that take span parameters.

Dotnet 5 Update

To convert from byte[] (byte array) to hexadecimal string, use:

System.Convert.ToHexString

var myBytes = new byte[100];
var myString = System.Convert.ToHexString(myBytes);

To convert from hexadecimal string to byte[], use:

System.Convert.FromHexString

var myString  = "E10B116E8530A340BCC7B3EAC208487B";
var myBytes = System.Convert.FromHexString(myString);

This is a great post. I like Waleed's solution. I haven't run it through patridge's test but it seems to be quite fast. I also needed the reverse process, converting a hex string to a byte array, so I wrote it as a reversal of Waleed's solution. Not sure if it's any faster than Tomalak's original solution. Again, I did not run the reverse process through patridge's test either.

private byte[] HexStringToByteArray(string hexString)
{
    int hexStringLength = hexString.Length;
    byte[] b = new byte[hexStringLength / 2];
    for (int i = 0; i < hexStringLength; i += 2)
    {
        int topChar = (hexString[i] > 0x40 ? hexString[i] - 0x37 : hexString[i] - 0x30) << 4;
        int bottomChar = hexString[i + 1] > 0x40 ? hexString[i + 1] - 0x37 : hexString[i + 1] - 0x30;
        b[i / 2] = Convert.ToByte(topChar + bottomChar);
    }
    return b;
}

.NET 5 has added the Convert.ToHexString method.

For those using an older version of .NET

internal static class ByteArrayExtensions
{
    
    public static string ToHexString(this byte[] bytes, Casing casing = Casing.Upper)
    {
        Span<char> result = stackalloc char[0];
        if (bytes.Length > 16)
        {
            var array = new char[bytes.Length * 2];
            result = array.AsSpan();
        }
        else
        {
            result = stackalloc char[bytes.Length * 2];
        }

        int pos = 0;
        foreach (byte b in bytes)
        {
            ToCharsBuffer(b, result, pos, casing);
            pos += 2;
        }

        return result.ToString();
    }

    private static void ToCharsBuffer(byte value, Span<char> buffer, int startingIndex = 0, Casing casing = Casing.Upper)
    {
        uint difference = (((uint)value & 0xF0U) << 4) + ((uint)value & 0x0FU) - 0x8989U;
        uint packedResult = ((((uint)(-(int)difference) & 0x7070U) >> 4) + difference + 0xB9B9U) | (uint)casing;

        buffer[startingIndex + 1] = (char)(packedResult & 0xFF);
        buffer[startingIndex] = (char)(packedResult >> 8);
    }
}

public enum Casing : uint
{
    // Output [ '0' .. '9' ] and [ 'A' .. 'F' ].
    Upper = 0,

    // Output [ '0' .. '9' ] and [ 'a' .. 'f' ].
    Lower = 0x2020U,
}

Adapted from the .NET repository https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/v5.0.3/src/libraries/System.Private.CoreLib/src/System/Convert.cs https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/v5.0.3/src/libraries/Common/src/System/HexConverter.cs

Extension methods (disclaimer: completely untested code, BTW...):

public static class ByteExtensions
{
    public static string ToHexString(this byte[] ba)
    {
        StringBuilder hex = new StringBuilder(ba.Length * 2);

        foreach (byte b in ba)
        {
            hex.AppendFormat("{0:x2}", b);
        }
        return hex.ToString();
    }
}

etc.. Use either of Tomalak's three solutions (with the last one being an extension method on a string).

Fastest method for old school people... miss you pointers

    static public byte[] HexStrToByteArray(string str)
    {
        byte[] res = new byte[(str.Length % 2 != 0 ? 0 : str.Length / 2)]; //check and allocate memory
        for (int i = 0, j = 0; j < res.Length; i += 2, j++) //convert loop
            res[j] = (byte)((str[i] % 32 + 9) % 25 * 16 + (str[i + 1] % 32 + 9) % 25);
        return res;
    }

Converting byte[] to a hexadecimal string - performance analysis

Updated on: 2022-04-17

Since .NET 5 you should use Convert.ToHexString(bytes[])!

using System;
string result = Convert.ToHexString(bytesToConvert);

About this leaderboard and the benchmark

The comparison from Thymine seems to be outdated and incomplete, especially after .NET 5 with its Convert.ToHexString, so I decided to ~~fall into the bytes to hex string rabbit hole~~ create a new, updated comparison with more methods from answers to both of these two questions.

I went with BenchamrkDotNet instead of a custom-made benchmarking script, which will, hopefully, make the result more accurate.
Remember that micro-benchmarking won't ever represent the actual situation, and you should do your tests.

I ran these benchmarks on a Linux with Kernel 5.15.32 on an AMD Ryzen 5800H with 2x8 GB DDR4 @ 2133 MHz.
Be aware that the whole benchmark might take a lot of time to complete - around 40 minutes on my machine.

UPPERCASE (capitalized) vs lowercase output

All methods mentioned (unless stated otherwise) focus on UPPERCASE output only. That means the output will look like B33F69, not b33f69.

The output from Convert.ToHexString is always uppercase. Still, thankfully there isn't any significant performance drop when paired with ToLower(), although both unsafe methods will be faster if that's your concern.

Making the string lowercase efficiently might be a challenge in some methods (especially the ones with bit operators magic), but in most, it's enough to change a parameter X2 to x2 or change the letters from uppercase to lowercase in a mapping.

Leaderboard

It is sorted by Mean N=100. The reference point is the StringBuilderForEachByte method.

Conclusion

The method ConvertToHexString is undoubtedly the fastest out there, and in my perspective, it should always be used if you have the option - it's swift and clean.

using System;

string result = Convert.ToHexString(bytesToConvert);

If not, I decided to highlight two other methods I consider worthy below. I decided not to highlight unsafe methods since such code might be not only, well, unsafe, but most projects I've worked with don't allow such code.

Worthy mentions

The first one is LookupPerByteSpan.
The code is almost identical to the code in LookupPerByte by CodesInChaos from this answer. This one is the fastest not-unsafe method benchmarked. The difference between the original and this one is using stack allocation for shorter inputs (up to 512 bytes). This makes this method around 10 % faster on these inputs but around 5 % slower on larger ones. Since most of the data I work with is shorter than larger, I opted for this one. LookupSpanPerByteSpan is also very fast, but the code size of its ReadOnlySpan<byte> mapping is too large compared to all other methods.

private static readonly uint[] Lookup32 = Enumerable.Range(0, 256).Select(i =>
{
    string s = i.ToString("X2");
    return s[0] + ((uint)s[1] << 16);
}).ToArray();

public string ToHexString(byte[] bytes)
{
    var result = bytes.Length * 2 <= 1024
        ? stackalloc char[bytes.Length * 2]
        : new char[bytes.Length * 2];

    for (int i = 0; i < bytes.Length; i++)
    {
        var val = Lookup32[bytes[i]];
        result[2 * i] = (char)val;
        result[2 * i + 1] = (char)(val >> 16);
    }

    return new string(result);
}

The second one is LookupAndShiftAlphabetSpanMultiply. First, I would like to mention that this one is my creation. However, I believe this method is not only pretty fast but also simple to understand. The speed comes from a change that happened in C# 7.3, where declared ReadOnlySpan<byte> methods returning a constant array initialization - new byte {1, 2, 3, ...} - are compiled as the program's static data, therefore omitting a redundant memory. [source]

private static ReadOnlySpan<byte> HexAlphabetSpan => new[]
{
    (byte)'0', (byte)'1', (byte)'2', (byte)'3',
    (byte)'4', (byte)'5', (byte)'6', (byte)'7',
    (byte)'8', (byte)'9', (byte)'A', (byte)'B',
    (byte)'C', (byte)'D', (byte)'E', (byte)'F'
};

public static string ToHexString(byte[] bytes)
{
    var res = bytes.Length * 2 <= 1024 ? stackalloc char[bytes.Length * 2] : new char[bytes.Length * 2];

    for (var i = 0; i < bytes.Length; ++i)
    {
        var j = i * 2;
        res[j] = (char)HexAlphabetSpan[bytes[i] >> 4];
        res[j + 1] = (char)HexAlphabetSpan[bytes[i] & 0xF];
    }

    return new string(res);
}

Source code

The source code for all methods, the benchmark, and this answer can be found here as a Gist on my GitHub.

Tests: Hex String To Byte Array

I noticed that most of tests were performed on functions that convert Bytes array to Hex string. So, in this post I will focus on the other side: functions that convert Hex String To Byte Array. If you are interested in result only, you could skip down to Summary section. The test code file is supplied at the end of the post.

Labels

I would like to name the function from the accepted answer (by Tomalak) StringToByteArrayV1, or to shortcut it to V1. rest of functions will be named in same way: V2, V3, V4, ..., etc.

Index of Participating Functions

• StringToByteArrayV1 by Tomalak (the accepted answer)
• StringToByteArrayV2 by Mykroft (using SoapHexBinary)
• StringToByteArrayV3 by drphrozen (look-up table)
• StringToByteArrayV4 by CoperNick (Byte Manipulation)
• StringToByteArrayV5_1 by Chris F (Byte Manipulation)
• StringToByteArrayV5_2 by Chris F ( V5_1 + ehanced it based on Amir Rezaei's comment)
• StringToByteArrayV5_3 by Chris F ( V5_2 + ehanced it based on Ben Voigt's comment) (you could see final shape of it at this post published test code)
• StringToByteArrayV6 by Ben Mosher (Byte Manipulation)
• StringToByteArrayV7 by Maratius (Byte Manipulation - the safe version)
• StringToByteArrayV8 by Maratius (Byte Manipulation - the unsafe version)
• StringToByteArrayV9 by Geograph
• StringToByteArrayV10 by AlejandroAlis
• StringToByteArrayV11 by Fredrik Hu
• StringToByteArrayV12 by Maarten Bodewes
• StringToByteArrayV13 by ClausAndersen
• StringToByteArrayV14 by Stas Makutin
• StringToByteArrayV15 by JJJ
• StringToByteArrayV16 by JamieSee
• StringToByteArrayV17 by spacepille
• StringToByteArrayV18 by Gregory Morse
• StringToByteArrayV19 by Rick
• StringToByteArrayV20 by SandRock
• StringToByteArrayV21 by Paul

Correctness Test

I have tested correctness by passing all 256 possible values of 1 byte, then checking output to see if correct. Result:

• V18 has issue with strings start with "00" (see Roger Stewart comment on it ). other than that it passes all tests.
• if hex string alphabet letters are uppercase: all functions successfully passed
• if hex string alphabet letters are lowercase then the following functions failed: V5_1, V5_2, v7, V8, V15, V19

note: V5_3 solves this issue (of V5_1 and V5_2)

Performance Test

I have done performance tests using Stopwatch class.

• Performance for long strings

input length: 10,000,000 bytes
runs: 100
average elapsed time per run:
V1 = 136.4ms
V2 = 104.5ms
V3 = 22.0ms
V4 = 9.9ms
V5_1 = 10.2ms
V5_2 = 9.0ms
V5_3 = 9.3ms
V6 = 18.3ms
V7 = 9.8ms
V8 = 8.8ms
V9 = 10.2ms
V10 = 19.0ms
V11 = 12.2ms
V12 = 27.4ms
V13 = 21.8ms
V14 = 12.0ms
V15 = 14.9ms
V16 = 15.3ms
V17 = 9.5ms
V18 got excluded from this test, because it was very slow when using very long string
V19 = 222.8ms
V20 = 66.0ms
V21 = 15.4ms

V1 average ticks per run: 1363529.4
V2 is more fast than V1 by: 1.3 times (ticks ratio)
V3 is more fast than V1 by: 6.2 times (ticks ratio)
V4 is more fast than V1 by: 13.8 times (ticks ratio)
V5_1 is more fast than V1 by: 13.3 times (ticks ratio)
V5_2 is more fast than V1 by: 15.2 times (ticks ratio)
V5_3 is more fast than V1 by: 14.8 times (ticks ratio)
V6 is more fast than V1 by: 7.4 times (ticks ratio)
V7 is more fast than V1 by: 13.9 times (ticks ratio)
V8 is more fast than V1 by: 15.4 times (ticks ratio)
V9 is more fast than V1 by: 13.4 times (ticks ratio)
V10 is more fast than V1 by: 7.2 times (ticks ratio)
V11 is more fast than V1 by: 11.1 times (ticks ratio)
V12 is more fast than V1 by: 5.0 times (ticks ratio)
V13 is more fast than V1 by: 6.3 times (ticks ratio)
V14 is more fast than V1 by: 11.4 times (ticks ratio)
V15 is more fast than V1 by: 9.2 times (ticks ratio)
V16 is more fast than V1 by: 8.9 times (ticks ratio)
V17 is more fast than V1 by: 14.4 times (ticks ratio)
V19 is more SLOW than V1 by: 1.6 times (ticks ratio)
V20 is more fast than V1 by: 2.1 times (ticks ratio)
V21 is more fast than V1 by: 8.9 times (ticks ratio)

• Performance of V18 for long strings

V18 took long time at the previous test, 
so let's decrease length for it:  
input length: 1,000,000 bytes
runs: 100
average elapsed time per run: V1 = 14.1ms , V18 = 146.7ms
V1 average ticks per run: 140630.3
V18 is more SLOW than V1 by: 10.4 times (ticks ratio)

• Performance for short strings

input length: 100 byte
runs: 1,000,000
V1 average ticks per run: 14.6
V2 is more fast than V1 by: 1.4 times (ticks ratio)
V3 is more fast than V1 by: 5.9 times (ticks ratio)
V4 is more fast than V1 by: 15.7 times (ticks ratio)
V5_1 is more fast than V1 by: 15.1 times (ticks ratio)
V5_2 is more fast than V1 by: 18.4 times (ticks ratio)
V5_3 is more fast than V1 by: 16.3 times (ticks ratio)
V6 is more fast than V1 by: 5.3 times (ticks ratio)
V7 is more fast than V1 by: 15.7 times (ticks ratio)
V8 is more fast than V1 by: 18.0 times (ticks ratio)
V9 is more fast than V1 by: 15.5 times (ticks ratio)
V10 is more fast than V1 by: 7.8 times (ticks ratio)
V11 is more fast than V1 by: 12.4 times (ticks ratio)
V12 is more fast than V1 by: 5.3 times (ticks ratio)
V13 is more fast than V1 by: 5.2 times (ticks ratio)
V14 is more fast than V1 by: 13.4 times (ticks ratio)
V15 is more fast than V1 by: 9.9 times (ticks ratio)
V16 is more fast than V1 by: 9.2 times (ticks ratio)
V17 is more fast than V1 by: 16.2 times (ticks ratio)
V18 is more fast than V1 by: 1.1 times (ticks ratio)
V19 is more SLOW than V1 by: 1.6 times (ticks ratio)
V20 is more fast than V1 by: 1.9 times (ticks ratio)
V21 is more fast than V1 by: 11.4 times (ticks ratio)

Testing Code

It is good idea to read Disclaimer section down here in this post, before using any from the following code https://github.com/Ghosticollis/performance-tests/blob/main/MTestPerformance.cs

Summary

I recommend using one of the following functions, because of the good performance, and support both upper and lower case:

• StringToByteArrayV4 by CoperNick
• StringToByteArrayV9 by Geograph
• StringToByteArrayV17 by spacepille
• StringToByteArrayV5_3 basically by Chris F (it is base on V5_1, but I have enhanced it based on Amir Rezaei's and Ben Voigt's comments).

Here is the final shape of V5_3:

static byte[] HexStringToByteArrayV5_3(string hexString) {
    int hexStringLength = hexString.Length;
    byte[] b = new byte[hexStringLength / 2];
    for (int i = 0; i < hexStringLength; i += 2) {
        int topChar = hexString[i];
        topChar = (topChar > 0x40 ? (topChar & ~0x20) - 0x37 : topChar - 0x30) << 4;
        int bottomChar = hexString[i + 1];
        bottomChar = bottomChar > 0x40 ? (bottomChar & ~0x20) - 0x37 : bottomChar - 0x30;
        b[i / 2] = (byte)(topChar + bottomChar);
    }
    return b;
}

Disclaimer

WARNING: I don't have proper knowledge in testing. The main purpose of these primitive tests is to give quick overview on what might be good from all of posted functions. If you need accurate results, please use proper testing tools.

Finally, I would like to say I am new to be active at stackoverflow, sorry if my post is lacking. comments to enhance this post would be appreciated.

Shortest way and .net core supported:

    public static string BytesToString(byte[] ba) =>
        ba.Aggregate(new StringBuilder(32), (sb, b) => sb.Append(b.ToString("X2"))).ToString();

There is a simple one-liner solution not yet mentioned that will convert hex strings into byte arrays (we don't care about negative interpretation here as it does not matter):

BigInteger.Parse(str, System.Globalization.NumberStyles.HexNumber).ToByteArray().Reverse().ToArray();

I came up with a different code that is tolerant to extra characters (whitespace, dash...). It is mostly inspired from some acceptably-fast answers here. It allows parsing of the following "file"

00-aa-84-fb
12 32 FF CD
12 00
12_32_FF_CD
1200d5e68a

/// <summary>Reads a hex string into bytes</summary>
public static IEnumerable<byte> HexadecimalStringToBytes(string hex) {
    if (hex == null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(hex));

    char c, c1 = default(char);
    bool hasc1 = false;
    unchecked   {
        for (int i = 0; i < hex.Length; i++) {
            c = hex[i];
            bool isValid = 'A' <= c && c <= 'f' || 'a' <= c && c <= 'f' || '0' <= c && c <= '9';
            if (!hasc1) {
                if (isValid) {
                    hasc1 = true;
                }
            } else {
                hasc1 = false;
                if (isValid) {
                    yield return (byte)((GetHexVal(c1) << 4) + GetHexVal(c));
                }
            }

            c1 = c;
        } 
    }
}

/// <summary>Reads a hex string into a byte array</summary>
public static byte[] HexadecimalStringToByteArray(string hex)
{
    if (hex == null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(hex));

    var bytes = new List<byte>(hex.Length / 2);
    foreach (var item in HexadecimalStringToBytes(hex)) {
        bytes.Add(item);
    }

    return bytes.ToArray();
}

private static byte GetHexVal(char val)
{
    return (byte)(val - (val < 0x3A ? 0x30 : val < 0x5B ? 0x37 : 0x57));
    //                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   ^^^^
    //                       digits 0-9       upper char A-Z     a-z
}

Please refer to full code when copying. Unit tests included.

Some might say it is too much tolerant to extra chars. So don't rely on this code to perform validation (or change it).

    // a safe version of the lookup solution:       

    public static string ByteArrayToHexViaLookup32Safe(byte[] bytes, bool withZeroX)
    {
        if (bytes.Length == 0)
        {
            return withZeroX ? "0x" : "";
        }

        int length = bytes.Length * 2 + (withZeroX ? 2 : 0);
        StateSmall stateToPass = new StateSmall(bytes, withZeroX);
        return string.Create(length, stateToPass, (chars, state) =>
        {
            int offset0x = 0;
            if (state.WithZeroX)
            {
                chars[0] = '0';
                chars[1] = 'x';
                offset0x += 2;
            }

            Span<uint> charsAsInts = MemoryMarshal.Cast<char, uint>(chars.Slice(offset0x));
            int targetLength = state.Bytes.Length;
            for (int i = 0; i < targetLength; i += 1)
            {
                uint val = Lookup32[state.Bytes[i]];
                charsAsInts[i] = val;
            }
        });
    }

    private struct StateSmall
    {
        public StateSmall(byte[] bytes, bool withZeroX)
        {
            Bytes = bytes;
            WithZeroX = withZeroX;
        }

        public byte[] Bytes;
        public bool WithZeroX;
    }

Combined a few answers into a class for my later copy and paste convenience:

/// <summary>
/// Extension methods to quickly convert byte array to string and back.
/// </summary>
public static class HexConverter
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Map values to hex digits
    /// </summary>
    private static readonly char[] HexDigits =
        {
            '0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F'
        };

    /// <summary>
    /// Map 56 characters between ['0', 'F'] to their hex equivalents, and set invalid characters
    /// such that they will overflow byte to fail conversion.
    /// </summary>
    private static readonly ushort[] HexValues =
        {
            0x0000, 0x0001, 0x0002, 0x0003, 0x0004, 0x0005, 0x0006, 0x0007, 0x0008, 0x0009, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100,
            0x000A, 0x000B, 0x000C, 0x000D, 0x000E, 0x000F, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100,
            0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x0100, 0x000A, 0x000B,
            0x000C, 0x000D, 0x000E, 0x000F
        };

    /// <summary>
    /// Empty byte array 
    /// </summary>
    private static readonly byte[] Empty = new byte[0];

    /// <summary>
    /// Convert a byte array to a hexadecimal string.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="bytes">
    /// The input byte array.
    /// </param>
    /// <returns>
    /// A string of hexadecimal digits.
    /// </returns>
    public static string ToHexString(this byte[] bytes)
    {
        var c = new char[bytes.Length * 2];
        for (int i = 0, j = 0; i < bytes.Length; i++)
        {
            c[j++] = HexDigits[bytes[i] >> 4];
            c[j++] = HexDigits[bytes[i] & 0x0F];
        }

        return new string(c);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Parse a string of hexadecimal digits into a byte array.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="hexadecimalString">
    /// The hexadecimal string.
    /// </param>
    /// <returns>
    /// The parsed <see cref="byte[]"/> array.
    /// </returns>
    /// <exception cref="ArgumentException">
    /// The input string either contained invalid characters, or was of an odd length.
    /// </exception>
    public static byte[] ToByteArray(string hexadecimalString)
    {
        if (!TryParse(hexadecimalString, out var value))
        {
            throw new ArgumentException("Invalid hexadecimal string", nameof(hexadecimalString));
        }

        return value;
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Parse a hexadecimal string to bytes
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="hexadecimalString">
    /// The hexadecimal string, which must be an even number of characters.
    /// </param>
    /// <param name="value">
    /// The parsed value if successful.
    /// </param>
    /// <returns>
    /// True if successful.
    /// </returns>
    public static bool TryParse(string hexadecimalString, out byte[] value)
    {
        if (hexadecimalString.Length == 0)
        {
            value = Empty;
            return true;
        }

        if (hexadecimalString.Length % 2 != 0)
        {
            value = Empty;
            return false;
        }

        try
        {

            value = new byte[hexadecimalString.Length / 2];
            for (int i = 0, j = 0; j < hexadecimalString.Length; i++)
            {
                value[i] = (byte)((HexValues[hexadecimalString[j++] - '0'] << 4)
                                  | HexValues[hexadecimalString[j++] - '0']);
            }

            return true;
        }
        catch (OverflowException)
        {
            value = Empty;
            return false;
        }
    }
}

If you want to get the "4x speed increase" reported by wcoenen, then if it's not obvious: replace hex.Substring(i, 2) with hex[i]+hex[i+1]

You could also take it a step further and get rid of the i+=2 by using i++ in both places.

Basic Solution With Extension Support

public static class Utils
{
    public static byte[] ToBin(this string hex)
    {
        int NumberChars = hex.Length;
        byte[] bytes = new byte[NumberChars / 2];
        for (int i = 0; i < NumberChars; i += 2)
            bytes[i / 2] = Convert.ToByte(hex.Substring(i, 2), 16);
        return bytes;
    }
    public static string ToHex(this byte[] ba)
    {
        return  BitConverter.ToString(ba).Replace("-", "");
    }
}

And use this class like below

    byte[] arr1 = new byte[] { 1, 2, 3 };
    string hex1 = arr1.ToHex();
    byte[] arr2 = hex1.ToBin();

Here's my purely binary solution without a need for a library lookup, and also supports upper/lower case:

public static String encode(byte[] bytes, boolean uppercase) {
    char[] result = new char[2 * bytes.length];
    for (int i = 0; i < bytes.length; i++) {
        byte word = bytes[i];
        byte left = (byte) ((0XF0 & word) >>> 4);
        byte right = (byte) ((byte) 0X0F & word);

        int resultIndex = i * 2;
        result[resultIndex] = encode(left, uppercase);
        result[resultIndex + 1] = encode(right, uppercase);
    }
    return new String(result);
}

public static char encode(byte value, boolean uppercase) {
    int characterCase = uppercase ? 0 : 32;
    if (value > 15 || value < 0) {
        return '0';
    }
    if (value > 9) {
        return (char) (value + 0x37 | characterCase);
    }
    return (char) (value + 0x30);
}

With Java 8 , we ca use Byte.toUnsignedInt

public static String convertBytesToHex(byte[] bytes) {
    StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
    for (byte byt : bytes) {
        int decimal = Byte.toUnsignedInt(byt);
        String hex = Integer.toHexString(decimal);
        result.append(hex);
    }
    return result.toString();
}