SSH Proxy Speeds faster than straight through connections

Chanceyman · Jul 29, 2009, 6:33 PM

I am using SSH as a Socks proxy server for use at work however I noticed today that when I FTP through the SSH connection I get much higher speeds then when connecting directly to the FTP server behind the firewall.. Has anyone else experienced this or possibly have an understanding as to why this would happen.

Actual Numbers from testing
Direct Connection Downloaded at 1.1MB/s
SSH Proxy Downloaded at 2.5MB/s

Also traffic shaper on or off does not seem to impact these speeds. On or off these are the speeds I am getting.

tommyboy180 · Jul 29, 2009, 6:50 PM

When you use SSH as a proxy it encrypts your traffic. Therefore you could be bypassing a traffic shaper or some sort of QoS. That's the only thing I can think of.

stompro · Aug 21, 2009, 9:36 PM

SSH also has the capability to compress traffic, so depending on what you are transferring, and if that feature is enabled, that could also affect it.