SFTP performance hit?

[Frank Kumro]

I have one of my friends transfering multiple gigs of data to my linux
machine. While he is transfering my machine bogs (AMD XP 3200+, 1gb
3200 ram,160gb hd) to the point where the mouse and keyboard lag. This
is the first time my machine has EVER bogged and lagged. He is only
transfering at 230kb/s , my question is there anyway to "tune" sftp or
am I better off setting up vsftp and calling it a day?
-- 
Frank
Shenanigans!!