What Is TCP Segmentation Offload (TSO)?

TCP segmentation offload (TSO) is an optimization technique that reduces the CPU overhead in TCP/IP-related network operations. With TSO enabled, a network internet controller (NIC) splits large data chunks traveling over a network into smaller TCP segments. Without TSO, the segmentation is performed by the CPU, which creates an overhead. TSO is also known as LSO (Large Segment Offload).