Speed of encryption

I'm trying to use WinSCP to allow some of my less unix-savvy users copy files around between their desktop computers and internal servers. Only SCP is allowed by our IT department.

The problem is the speed of transfer - they commonly want to copy files on the order of 100 MB and this doesn't seem to work.

The software sits for 30+ minutes not making any progress copying (0 bytes) and sucking up CPU - I assume it is doing encryption, but it shouldn't take THAT long to do the encryption, should it?

Average PC around here is:
Win XP
1.2 Ghz P IV
256 MB RAM etc.

This happens on all versions of WinSCP I've tried from 2 up to and including 3.5.5b.

How long should this be taking?

Thanks.

It is not during any encryption in advance, so I do not know that is the problem. I have never experienced this problem.

I have only one hint, but I do not think that it will help:
If you attempt to transfer very large file using ASCII (text) mode, it is converted in memory before transfer. It may take a long time.

martin wrote:

It is not during any encryption in advance, so I do not know that is the problem. I have never experienced this problem.

I have only one hint, but I do not think that it will help:
If you attempt to transfer very large file using ASCII (text) mode, it is converted in memory before transfer. It may take a long time.

Actually that hint solved the problem. The files we were transfer were large lists of user ids in txt form. Switching the software to always use binary made it work. Thanks.