SSH file transfer performance

The following table summarizes performance of SSH clients.  For fairness, all clients were run in virtual machines on msn-rd-esxi3, with the server always being Solaris in a virtual machine on msn-rd-esxi2.  These two hosts are connected by a 1Gbit/sec link.  Tests from desktop computers can be significantly slower; I suspect that our desktops have only a 100 Mbit/sec link.  The listed speeds are generally the fastest of three trials.

Client Client OS Server Comp
Enable
File
Compressible
DL Speed UL Speed
libssh2 Win Solaris No No 12.98 MB/sec 0.42 MB/sec
libssh2 Win Solaris Yes No 6.59 MB/sec Fails
libssh2 Linux Solaris No No 9.87 MB/sec 1.85 MB/sec
libssh2 Linux Solaris Yes No 6.58 MB/sec Fails
libssh2 Win Linux No No 6.63 MB/sec 6.70 MB/sec
libssh2 Win Linux Yes No   Fails: -5
BitVise Tunnelier Win Solaris No No 13.50 MB/sec 3.95 MB/sec
BitVise Tunnelier Win Solaris Yes No 8.541 MB/sec 10.2 MB/sec
Ubuntu sftp Linux Solaris ? No 29.6 MB/sec 11.5 MB/sec
psftp Win Solaris No No   5.06 MB/sec
psftp Win Linux No No   6.58 MB/sec

It is unclear why Tunnelier uploads are so much faster with compression, given that the test file is not compressible. 

Mark Riordan  2010-10-19