For two years I used the official desktop app of a popular cloud storage provider. It worked fine — until the day I wanted to grep a folder of 4,000 markdown files I had stored there.
Then it broke. The desktop app's virtual filesystem driver only exposes files on demand, and grep on 4,000 files means 4,000 separate API round trips. That's a 90-second wait minimum.
I switched to a WebDAV mount via ScsDriver and the same grep takes 6 seconds.
This post is about why a WebDAV mount beats the typical cloud sync client for certain workloads, and when the sync client still wins.
What I was doing before
- Storage: 4 TB across two cloud providers, one paid, one free tier
- Files: ~80,000 markdown / image / video files
- Workflow: Lots of
grep,ripgrep,cat,find, batch renames, ffmpeg batch transcoding.
The official desktop client worked. Slows once every few weeks (server-side change). It also eats 1.4 GB of RAM at idle.
What I switched to
I set up WebDAV via ScsDriver on Windows. Two mount points, one per provider. Total RAM usage: 200 MB.
Speed comparison
Real workload on the same Windows 11 machine, same gigabit uplink.
| Task | Desktop sync app | WebDAV via ScsDriver |
|---|---|---|
grep -r "TODO" 4000 files |
92 seconds | 6 seconds |
find . -name "*.jpg" -size 5M |
47 seconds | 4 seconds |
| Open 100 random files in VS Code | 130 seconds (lazy load) | 12 seconds |
| RAM at idle | 1.4 GB | 200 MB |
| Disk usage (local) | Full mirror, 800 GB | 0 bytes (no cache) |
The desktop app pre-fetches and caches aggressively. If you want a real local copy, you get one. If you don't, you're paying the price in latency for every batch operation.
When the sync app still wins
- Offline mode on a plane: the sync client caches aggressively, WebDAV mount needs the connection.
- Edit conflict detection: sync apps track file versions; WebDAV mount is dumb to that.
- Selective sync folders: the desktop app lets you pick which folders stay local; WebDAV mount is all-or-nothing.
- Notifications: sync apps tell you "synced" or "error"; WebDAV mount just fails silently in some apps.
When WebDAV mount wins
- Batch operations (grep / ripgrep / find / anything that walks the tree)
- Low RAM
- No local disk used (cloud-only setups, small SSDs)
- CLI tools that don't play with the desktop app's virtual FS
Setup
For ScsDriver, it's literally:
- Add mount point:
https://your-provider.com/dav - User/password
- Pick drive letter
Z: - Click "Mount"
That's it. No sync state, no conflict resolution, no local mirror. The drive letter just appears and behaves like a real disk.
Reference links
- ScsDriver: https://drive.scsoi.com/ (7-day trial, $9.99/yr after)
Disclaimer: I'm a happy ScsDriver user, no affiliation. Pick the right tool for the workload.
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