Map a Drive via SFTP

[Rover]

Just found this, read some positive reviews and have not tested it myself.  The reviews I read pretty much say that "it just works."  Kind of a cool concept.  WinDrive seems to be the free competetion, but is not on par with reliability and speed.

Map your SSH server as a Windows network drive with SftpDrive. Our SFTP file system network enables all your Windows applications.

Don't drag and drop. Don't transfer back and forth. Just use your network files directly from your applications. Keeping track of which version of your project is on the server and on your PC is annoying. Ease the pain by just editing the project right on your server. Perfect for any web developer or programmer that runs Windows, but relies on Linux. SftpDrive network-enables all your Windows applications by enabling you to map your SSH server as a network drive.

- their site: www.sftpdrive.com

http://www.sftpdrive.com

[f0dder]

Sounds pretty interesting...

[ToxMox]

It's unfortunate that there are no freeware apps to do this.  WebDrive does this too and is also $40.

[urlwolf]

maybe we should try to get a discount on this.
Webdrive's license is valid for one year of updates.maybe we should try to get a discount on this.
Webdrive's license is valid for one year of updates.

I'm testing both right now, and Webdrive has a load of features that sftpdrive
doesn't (e.g. incremental backups, webDAP support) and it feels a lot snappier.
One nice thing about sftpdrive is that you can assign icons to your webdrives,
and that it doesn't download all files locally.

Unfortunately the price is now $54 for one year.

I'd get it if there was a discount...

[Rover]

I'm so lame... I thought I posted about this great alternative. 

WinSCP3 http://winscp.net does almost as good as sftpdrive.  What it does not do is map a drive.
What it does do, is let you connect in a Norton Commander like interface and do almost exactly the same things.  Copy, move, edit, rename, delete, etc. etc. via SSH. 

Best of all.... IT'S TOTALLY FREE!     

here's the screenshot 

PS: I tried to get a discount on sftpdrive.  They replied quickly and said they'd love to help, but aren't yet in a position to offer discounts.

[jgpaiva]

Ok, today I found I really need something like this, I think.
Does anyone know any free/open software for windows that can map a drive letter to an sftp folder?

(@rover: I already use winscp for other stuff, but I need the mapping to be able to edit code remotelly)

ps: I found this thread while searching google. I guess I should have come here first

[kartal]

It sounds good, but 40$ seems more than I would like to pay for such thing, not that I do not appreciate the work but the economy is tight.


edit:
I emailed them and it looks like windows version supports only sftp which is even worse for me because mac users can use it for other ftp protocols for the same price. If you are on windows you get only sftp for 40$

[Innuendo]

Seems like if you want something like this AND require drive letter mapping there are only two products capable of this.

SFTPDrive is now called ExpanDrive. I checked out the Mac product page and the video showing off the Mac features looked really cool.

[kartal]

yeah mac stuff is maybe cool but I hardly use Mac   On the other hand I do not understand the reasoning behind selling a stripped down version of the software for the same price. Why should I as a Windows user pay the same price to get only one(sftp) of the features ? The I would need to buy another software to map ftp so forth. It makes no sense to me. Either they should provide full featured application for the same price or they should just stop selling it until they have a full version.




There are couple other ftp drive mapping ones but I do not think they support sftp so far. Netdrive and ftpdrive are the ones I tried in the past.

[Innuendo]

kartal,
I noticed that the Mac version of the software is v2.0 while the PC version is just at v1.83 so hopefully that means the missing features on the PC side will be coming if/when they release a v2.0 for the PC especially now that they have changed the product name to match the Mac version.

[mwb1100]

The ExpanDrive people have definitely been working much more dilligently on the Mac version of the product.  They've indicated that they are planning to move the Mac features over to the Windows product, but that process has been very, very slow so far.

I'd say to try it out and buy it if it meets your needs *today* - don't buy on speculation of additional features in future versions.  If and when they do add the newer features (I think the main ones are FTP and Amazon S3 support) to the Windows product, I suspect they are likely to ask for an upgrade fee (they did on the Mac side; I see no reason why they wouldn't on the Windows side).

For me, the big plus of SFPTDrive/ExpanDrive over WebDrive is that ExpanDrive is licensed on a user basis, while WebDrive is tied to a machine.

[dhuser]

There is free program that does this called NetDrive (http://www.netdrive.net/). Unfortunately, it is no longer being developed, but is a great piece of software. It was recently covered at Download Squad. It maps an FTP server and shows it as a hard drive in My Computer. Note that NetDrive is not Vista 64-bit compatible.