diff --git a/core/src/main/java/hudson/FilePath.java b/core/src/main/java/hudson/FilePath.java
index e50577e431..c7c1bfad2b 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/hudson/FilePath.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/hudson/FilePath.java
@@ -1317,7 +1317,14 @@ public final class FilePath implements Serializable {
 
         byte[] buf = new byte[8192];
 
-        TarOutputStream tar = new TarOutputStream(new BufferedOutputStream(out));
+        TarOutputStream tar = new TarOutputStream(new BufferedOutputStream(out) {
+            // TarOutputStream uses TarBuffer internally,
+            // which flushes the stream for each block. this creates unnecessary
+            // data stream fragmentation, and flush request to a remote, which slows things down.
+            public void flush() throws IOException {
+                // so don't do anything in flush
+            }
+        });
         tar.setLongFileMode(TarOutputStream.LONGFILE_GNU);
         String[] files;
         if(baseDir.exists()) {
diff --git a/remoting/src/main/java/hudson/remoting/Command.java b/remoting/src/main/java/hudson/remoting/Command.java
index f8acc46066..a0112331be 100644
--- a/remoting/src/main/java/hudson/remoting/Command.java
+++ b/remoting/src/main/java/hudson/remoting/Command.java
@@ -44,7 +44,20 @@ abstract class Command implements Serializable {
 
 
     protected Command() {
-        this.createdAt = new Source();
+        this(true);
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * @param recordCreatedAt
+     *      If false, skip the recording of where the command is created. This makes the trouble-shooting
+     *      and cause/effect correlation hard in case of a failure, but it will reduce the amount of the data
+     *      transferred.
+     */
+    protected Command(boolean recordCreatedAt) {
+        if(recordCreatedAt)
+            this.createdAt = new Source();
+        else
+            this.createdAt = null;
     }
 
     /**
diff --git a/remoting/src/main/java/hudson/remoting/ProxyOutputStream.java b/remoting/src/main/java/hudson/remoting/ProxyOutputStream.java
index 70b31b346c..d7ceee650d 100644
--- a/remoting/src/main/java/hudson/remoting/ProxyOutputStream.java
+++ b/remoting/src/main/java/hudson/remoting/ProxyOutputStream.java
@@ -150,6 +150,10 @@ final class ProxyOutputStream extends OutputStream {
         private final byte[] buf;
 
         public Chunk(int oid, byte[] buf) {
+            // to improve the performance when a channel is used purely as a pipe,
+            // don't record the stack trace. On FilePath.writeToTar case, the stack trace and the OOS header
+            // takes up about 1.5K.
+            super(false);
             this.oid = oid;
             this.buf = buf;
         }
@@ -177,6 +181,7 @@ final class ProxyOutputStream extends OutputStream {
         private final int oid;
 
         public Flush(int oid) {
+            super(false);
             this.oid = oid;
         }