Slow TRAMP mode in Emacs

How can I make Emacs TRAMP mode faster?

I have ControlMaster auto in my SSH config, and it is working:

$ time ssh -v debel echo fooOpenSSH_5.6p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8r 8 Feb 2011debug1: Reading configuration data /Users/jmdeldin/.ssh/configdebug1: Applying options for *debug1: Applying options for debeldebug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_configdebug1: Applying options for *debug1: auto-mux: Trying existing masterdebug1: mux_client_request_session: master session id: 9foodebug1: mux_client_request_session: master session id: 9real    0m0.014suser    0m0.008ssys     0m0.003s

But TRAMP is painfully slow (~3 s file saves), as can be seen in this screencast. M-x shell works fine, but saving is the real slow down. This isn't the best TRAMP can do, right?

Details

• GNU Emacs 24.1.1 (2012-06-01 build)
• I am running a vanilla Emacs instance (I eval'd a color theme in the video, but that's it).
• The VM is running on my machine.
• I am connecting with TRAMP via /rsync:user@host:file, but I have tried ssh, scp, and even rsh, and all of them are laggy.