Speeding up sshfs with faster Cipher Algorithms

When copying data using sshfs on weak systems such as a NAS, you usually encounter poor throughput performance. With those systems not network bandwidth or hard drive performance might be the bottleneck, but little CPU power. ssh’s data encryption and compression algorithms slow down the overall data transfer.

Tweaking sshfs with some options might improve the situation:

• use a faster cipher algorithms that need less cpu power, e.g. arcfour, blowfish-cbc
• additionally you can turn off compression

$ sshfs [user@]host:[dir] mountpoint -o Ciphers=arcfour -o compression=no

Be aware, a faster cipher algorithm is usually also a weaker one! That means you will weaken your overall security! So don’t do this in unsafe environments! You might only want to do this in your home network.