FWIW, I've always used this: tar -cpf - | ssh user@destserver "cd /; tar xf -"

Thing about this method is that it will maintain file/folder permissions between machines (assuming the same users/groups exist on both) (Also I typically do this to copy virtual disk images since I can use a -S parameter to handle sparse files.)

Just tested this between two busy servers and managed ~14GB in 216s (about 64MB/s) - might would do better between dedicated machines and/or compression... YMMV

$ date; tar -cpf - Installers | ssh elvis "cd /home/elvis/tst; tar xf -"; date
Wed Sep  9 15:23:37 EDT 2015
Wed Sep  9 15:27:13 EDT 2015

$ du -s Installers
14211072   Installers

FWIW, I've always used this:

tar -cpf - <source path> | ssh user@destserver "cd /; tar xf -"

Thing about this method is that it will maintain file/folder permissions between machines (assuming the same users/groups exist on both) (Also I typically do this to copy virtual disk images since I can use a -S parameter to handle sparse files.)

Just tested this between two busy servers and managed ~14GB in 216s (about 64MB/s) - might would do better between dedicated machines and/or compression... YMMV

$ date; tar -cpf - Installers | ssh elvis "cd /home/elvis/tst; tar xf -"; date
Wed Sep  9 15:23:37 EDT 2015
Wed Sep  9 15:27:13 EDT 2015

$ du -s Installers
14211072   Installers