Which data encryption mechanism to use for data transfer?
You should use AES. If you have the AES-NI instruction (which most modern chips have), then this performs very fast. For most applications today, AES-128 is certainly sufficient. However, I want to stress that it's not just the algorithm, it's also the mode of operation. You should use GCM. If you use OpenSSL then with AES-128-GCM you'll get speeds of about 0.7 cycles per byte for encryption (with AES-NI).