Is there an optimal byte size for sending data over a network?

Question

I assume 100 bytes is too small and can slow down larger file transfers with all of the writes, but something like 1MB seems like it may be too much. Does anyone have any sugge

Answer 1

No, there is no universal optimal byte size.

TCP packets are subject to fragmentation, and while it would be nice to assume that everything from here to your destination is true ethernet with huge packet sizes, the reality is even if you can get the packet sizes of all the individual networks one of your packets takes, each packet you send out may take a different path through the internet.

It's not a problem you can "solve" and there's no universal ideal size.

Feed the data to the OS and TCP/IP stack as quickly as you can, and it'll dynamically adapt the packet size to the network connections (you should see the code they use for this optimization - it's really, really interesting. At least on the better stacks.)

If you control all the networks and stacks being used and inbetween your clients/servers, though, then you can do some hand tuning. But generally even then you'd have to have a really good grasp of the network and the data your sending before I'd suggest you approach it.

-Adam