gzip: tar -cz /home/me/source/directory | ssh target tar -xz --directory /home/you/target/directory xz: tar -cJ /home/me/source/directory | ssh target tar -xJ

gzip: tar -cz /home/me/source/directory | ssh target tar -xz --directory /home/you/target/directory xz: tar -cJ /home/me/source/directory | ssh target tar -xJ --directory /home/you/target/directory ssh -C won't be as good. in particular with a recent xz that's threaded it will probably be faster than OP's with a good CPU