Every WebDAV mount review says the same thing: "slightly slower than a local drive, but unnoticeable for daily use." That's a cop-out answer. I wanted actual numbers.
So I spent 90 days running a side-by-side: WebDAV mount (via ScsDriver) on one folder, Windows network drive mapping on another. Same files, same server, same client machine. Here's what I measured.
Test setup
- Server: Synology DS220+ (2-bay NAS, Realtek RTD1296)
- Client: Windows 11, gigabit Ethernet
- Files: 10,000 mixed files (PDFs, JPGs, DOCX, MP4, source code)
- Total size: 87GB
- WebDAV server: Synology built-in WebDAV (TLS enabled)
- WebDAV client: ScsDriver
- Network drive: Windows native SMB mapping
Read latency (single file)
| Operation | WebDAV mount | SMB network drive |
|---|---|---|
| Open 5MB PDF | 180ms | 95ms |
| Open 50MB video | 720ms | 410ms |
| Open 500MB ISO | 8.2s | 6.1s |
| Open 5GB archive | 78s | 64s |
The WebDAV mount is consistently 30-50% slower on first-read. The reason: WebDAV over HTTPS adds TLS overhead plus per-request headers that SMB doesn't need.
But here's the thing — once the file is open, the read stream itself is similar. The 8.2s vs 6.1s difference on the ISO is mostly handshake, not transfer.
Repeated read (same file twice)
| Operation | WebDAV mount | SMB network drive |
|---|---|---|
| Reopen same 5MB PDF | 22ms | 18ms |
| Reopen same 50MB video | 95ms | 78ms |
Both protocols cache at the OS level. Once the file is in the page cache, the second open is nearly identical. WebDAV's overhead drops to ~10%.
Write latency
| Operation | WebDAV mount | SMB network drive |
|---|---|---|
| Save 2MB edited file | 310ms | 280ms |
| Save 20MB project | 2.1s | 1.8s |
| Save 200MB video render | 24s | 21s |
WebDAV writes are also 10-15% slower. The protocol needs to confirm the upload and update server-side metadata that SMB handles implicitly.
The killer metric: app launch
I expected the WebDAV mount to lose badly here. I was surprised.
| App | WebDAV mount | SMB network drive |
|---|---|---|
| VS Code (project on mount) | 4.1s cold start | 3.9s cold start |
| Photoshop (open from mount) | 6.8s | 6.4s |
| Premiere (proxy edit) | 9.2s | 8.7s |
The gap is real but small. For most apps, the WebDAV mount's overhead is dominated by the app's own load time, not the file protocol.
The unexpected failure mode
After 90 days, I hit one case where WebDAV mount was dramatically worse than SMB: when I lost network connectivity for a few seconds.
With SMB: Windows retries automatically. The mount may pause but recovers.
With WebDAV (any client): the connection drops. The app sees "file not found." I had to close the file, wait for the mount to reconnect, and reopen.
This is the one place where the "unnoticeable for daily use" claim falls apart. If your network is unstable (Wi-Fi hopping, VPN reconnecting), WebDAV mount will frustrate you.
The scorecard
| Use case | WebDAV mount verdict |
|---|---|
| Document editing (Word, PDF) | Excellent — 180ms is unnoticeable |
| Spreadsheets and databases | Excellent |
| Photo browsing | Excellent |
| Code editing | Excellent — VS Code's LSP works fine |
| Video playback (direct from mount) | Good — 720ms initial seek, then smooth |
| Video editing (timeline scrub) | Acceptable — 30% slower than SMB |
| Massive file moves (50GB+) | Poor — resumable transfers need a different tool |
| Unstable network | Poor — frequent disconnects |
Who should use WebDAV mount
- People editing documents, photos, or code
- People with stable gigabit connections
- People who want to access their NAS from outside the home network
- People who want cross-platform mounts (Mac, Linux, iOS, Android)
Who should stick with SMB
- Video editors scrubbing 4K timelines
- Anyone on flaky Wi-Fi
- Anyone moving multi-GB files frequently
- People with a local NAS and no need for remote access
The $5.5 lifetime reality
ScsDriver's $5.5 lifetime license is a no-brainer if your workload is documents, code, or photos. You'll never notice the 30% read overhead.
If your workload is video editing or massive file moves, $5.5 is still cheap to try — but don't expect it to replace a local SSD or even a fast SMB mount.
The 90-day verdict: WebDAV mount is a great default for 80% of users. The remaining 20% need either a faster network or a different tool.
Try it
If you've been curious about WebDAV mount but worried about performance, the $5.5 lifetime tier is the cheapest possible test. One payment, all your devices. Run the same 30-day test I did. Most people will be pleasantly surprised.
The link is in my profile.
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