Introduction / Use Cases:
In the following cases it is desirable to avoid copying over files though HTTP or SFTP to a local drive:
- To save space.
- To speed up a process when is just needed to read a small part of a multi gigabyte file.
In the following cases copying is faster:
- When reading the same file several times. Reading a file though the network several times is often slower than copy it once and read it from a local drive several times.
Recommended tools to obtain native access to openBIS Virtual SFTP:
- Windows 10: https://winfsp.dev/rel/ (recommended) or https://www.nsoftware.com/sftp/netdrive/ (legacy)
- Mac OS X Yosemite and higher: https://mountainduck.io
- Kubuntu: Default Dolphin File Manager with SFTP support
Notes on Mountain Duck on Windows with openBIS Virtual SFTP at 24.10.2018
Currently is only recommended to use Mountain Duck on Mac OS X where it works perfectly. Tests done on the Windows version show it to be buggy, not allowing to navigate between folders and being overall slower than SFTP Net Drive for reading files.