Turn an FTP Site Into a Local Windows Drive

The screen shot below shows one of the drives on my Windows 7 PC, via the standard Explorer interface.  At first glance, nothing special.  But look closely at the filenames and you'll see .htpasswds, .cpanel, public_html etc.  These aren't Windows files, but directories on a remote Linux-based web server.

This clever trickery is achieved via a superb bit of Windows software called NetDrive, which is a rather neat version of the better-known FTP client.  Instead of having to launch the FTP client and use its own interface to transfer files between my PC and my web server, I can now just access them as I would any other drive on my computer.

The remote drive is slower, obviously, than a local one, because it's being accessed over the internet.  But it does mean that I can use any Windows application to access those remote files.

For editing and updating web pages, it's ideal.  And there are other benefits too.  For example, any standard backup tool or file copying facility can now back up my data to a remote drive rather than a local one.  

NetDrive runs on Windows 2000 and above, and is a 10 MB download.  It costs $29 for commercial use, but for home usage is completely free.  Get it from www.netdrive.net . 

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