>I am trying to get some networking information in order to tune the
>through-put on our firewalls that handle TSM backup traffic.  I vaguely
>remember seeing an option to tune the packet size, but I thought I would
>throw this out to the list for comment.

If the context is TCP/IP, then it may be mean much...
TCP/IP has architecturally limited MTU sizes, where the standard Ethernet MTU
size is 1500.  Jumbo Frames with gige boost that to 9000, but from what I've
read Jumbo Frames is non-standard.  And you may be cut down anyway by the Path
MTU Discovery.  Larger packets need to be subdivided to be transmitted, then be
reassembled at their destination, in the right order, after receiving all.
Enforcing smaller packets via TCPNodelay may get data out faster, but that may
mean more packets...and each packet makes for a CPU interrupt, and CPU
interrupts can be a big impairment on host performance.

  Richard Sims, BU