Every once in awhile, I need to backup a large directory from another computer. This can be done by creating a zip or tar of the files you are looking to save and then copying those zips to the other computer. But what it you have a very large directory and not enough room to store the extra file. Here is a way to use tar over ssh:
ssh tar zcvf – /wwwdata | ssh root@backupserver.mydomain.com “cat > /backup/wwwdata.tar.gz”