Copy with SCP - low performance

[WipeOut]

Horacio Reyes wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I am using scp to copy large amount of small files between 2 servers
>with a firewall in the middle, but the copy takes all CPU, this is the
>situation:
>
>- The files are copied in batch of 100 tif images, in a directory with
>more than 5 million files.
>- the server that initiate the scp is a 1.2Ghz P3 with 2G in ram, the
>receiver is a double Xeon 2.6ghz with 2G in ram. The first server takes
>no time to send the file, but the receiver takes more than 200segs to
>copy. They are in a 100mb lan.
>- the top comand shows 98% free cpu before the scp, when scp start it
>takes 100% of the 2 xeon cpu. The problem is not the ram, both servers
>have more than 1G free when scp starts.
>
>I tried with all the SCP flags (-q, -c blowfish, etc), and nothing
>works....
>
>Regards,
>Horacio Reyes Rios
>Eng. Director.
>
>  
>

I have found thet SCP does not like lots of small files, if you can tar 
the files together into on big file it will probably transfer much quicker..