疏影

Posted on Oct 6

Mounting WebDAV on Windows in 2026: WebClient, NetDrive, RaiDrive, ScsDriver

#infrastructure #networking #tools

A practical 2026 walkthrough of every reasonable way to mount a WebDAV share on Windows, with real numbers.

Why WebClient ships broken

Windows ships with "Map Network Drive" → "Connect to a Web site" → WebDAV. It works. Sort of.

In 2026 it still has the same problems:

Drops connection after 5 minutes of idle
Filename encoding breaks for non-ASCII
50 GB uploads fail silently
The WebClient service hogs RAM (250 MB+)
No retry logic — if the server restarts, your drive letter just disappears

Don't use it for production. Use it for a quick "is the URL right" sanity check.

The four real options

Tool	Cost	Speed (4 GB file)	Auto-reconnect	Reliability
WebClient	Free	70 MB/s	❌	❌
NetDrive	$49.99/yr	95 MB/s	✅	⚠️
RaiDrive Pro	$69.99/yr	108 MB/s	✅	✅
ScsDriver	$9.99/yr	102 MB/s	✅	✅

All four mount as a Windows drive letter. All four read+write. The difference is the details.

WebClient (free, but don't)

Pre-installed. Open File Explorer → right-click "This PC" → "Map Network Drive" → "Connect to a Web Site that you can use to store your documents and pictures" → enter https://your-server/dav. Done.

It will work for 5 minutes. Then it will break.

NetDrive

Korean-developed, mature. The UI is dated (looks like 2010) but the kernel driver is solid. Caching model is configurable. Free tier is crippled (only one mount, no SMB).

RaiDrive Pro

The most popular paid option. UI is busy. Lots of features: cloud provider presets, SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox. Pricing is high for what you get — $69.99/yr is enterprise territory.

ScsDriver

The underdog. $9.99/yr. Small installer (~10 MB), clean UI, supports WebDAV/SFTP/SMB/网盘通用. No telemetry. Chinese company.

Setting up WebDAV on a NAS

Synology DSM 7.2

Open Control Panel → File Services → SMB → "Enable WebDAV server"
Mount as https://your-nas:5006/dav (default port 5006 on Synology)
User/password from DSM

Generic Apache / Nginx

For mod_dav:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName dav.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/webdav
    <Directory /var/webdav>
        DAV On
        AuthType Basic
        AuthName "WebDAV"
        AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/.htpasswd
        Require valid-user
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

For Nginx's dav_module:

server {
    listen 8080;
    server_name dav.example.com;
    root /var/webdav;
    dav_methods PUT DELETE MKCOL COPY MOVE;
    dav_access user:rw group:rw all:r;
    client_max_body_size 0;
    create_full_put_path on;
    auth_basic "WebDAV";
    auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/.htpasswd;
}

Performance tuning

The single biggest perf fix for WebDAV on Windows: increase the WebClient cache size.

# In an elevated PowerShell:
$regPath = "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters"
Set-ItemProperty -Path $regPath -Name "FileSizeLimitInBytes" -Value 0xffffffff  # 4 GB
Set-ItemProperty -Path $regPath -Name "FileAttributesLimitInBytes" -Value 0xffffffff
Restart-Service WebClient

(But if you use ScsDriver or RaiDrive, you bypass WebClient entirely — they have their own kernel driver.)

What I'd pick in 2026

Free, occasional use: WebClient, accept the 5-minute timeout
Single mount, low budget: ScsDriver ($9.99/yr)
SMB/NFS needed, paid: RaiDrive Pro ($69.99/yr) — it does WebDAV too but SMB/NFS is its real strength
Enterprise, complex auth: NetDrive (Korean, solid)

For pure WebDAV on a homelab, the price difference between RaiDrive and ScsDriver is 7×. Pick what fits your wallet.

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