Firewalls slowing transfer rate

Mutant_Fruit

I was recently transferring bucket loads of files to and fro between my new computer and my old one via 10/100 ethernet, formatting and reinstalling windows as i cleaned up each harddrive.

One thing i noticed while doing this marathon job (which is about 85% done now) is that if i leave my software firewall on (kerio personal firewall) my transfer rate is about 3-4 megabytes a second, whereas if i turn it off, i average 10-12mb/sec.

I presume this is because the firewall scans each packet as it passes through, and it just can't cope with that level of dataflow.

Do hardware firewalls suffer this problem? And do other software firewalls suffer this problem?

KdjaCL

Zonealarm doesnt have that problem.

Can you not disbale it or alter the scan?

kdjac

OfflerCrocGod

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
Do hardware firewalls suffer this problem? And do other software firewalls suffer this problem?

Of course they do - there is no such thing as a free lunch:( - this is the reason why I dont use either a firewall or a virus scanner they make your PC crawl. Of course a hardware firewall will be faster - but there will always be a penalty.

Mutant_Fruit

I doubt that its just kerio that has the problem, but i'll test out zonealarm later. For normal traffic, such as 512k internet, there is less than 1ms difference in pings etc, so i also doubt your statement that it makes your computer crawl.

I'll get back to ya's later when i test zonealarm.

^pt^

Have you tried adding the network ip address as trusted? I'm guessing it wouldn't bother scanning the traffic then.

Turner

Moved to nets / comms.

Chief.

_CreeD_

Also are you sure it's not a virus scan being run on each file in the background(Norton AntiVirus has a habit of doing that on me even with AP turned off)

Mutant_Fruit

@Chief: i assumed that this belonged to the broadband section, as every broadband user has a firewall, my mistake.

Creed: Its not a virus scanning thats slowing the transfer rate, as when i disable the firewall, the transfer rate rockets up, and when i reenable it, the transfer rate plummets again.