Why are my download times not faster (100ms) for a 1 KB file off an MFT server

Question

I want to achieve the lowest possible download time over SFTP for a single 1KB file that is posted on an MFT server. Currently, I am operating a Windows 8 machine RC2 DL360 G8 and libSSH but I see a 100ms download time and wanted to know how to reduce this.

Answer 1

The only way you can limit the download times of a 1KB file is by lowering the latency and increasing the speed of your storage device.

The reason for this is in the nature of how a TCP connection is made.

It connects and first gets one packet. If that packet is succesful, it then gets two, if that is succesful, it then gets 4. It will increment this each time until packets stop arriving (read more). This is how the download speed is determined it can get. Given that you only have a 1KB file, it will never get to full download speed, but this process just takes a bit of time to complete.

The further away a file is, the more time it takes for this initial process to complete because each time a packet or a cluster of packets is downloaded, a confirmation packet is sent back. The further away this is, the more time this takes. With large files, you download a huge chunk of the file at once before you confirm that you got it, and that is why after the connection reaches its full speed, the filetransfer goes fast.

In your case, with 1KB of data, you never reach that point.

If you can download the file from a location close to you, that will improve the perceived speed, and if your storage medium is fast too, it will also help. That's all you can do basically for small files.

If you have a lot of small files, it will be faster to get a compressed version that has all files inside it.