Best method to mount network folders for office use over wifi

I currently use an external usb drive for my office data as the laptop drive is tiny. However it doesnt work great when i need to move around the office.

Whats the best way to mount a network drive for use under kde for office use? Id love to still be able view thumbnails to photos and stuff.

SMB, NFS, SFTP? or something else?

What is currently used?

I’d say:
NFS
and:

better Wifi coverage.

SMB if Windows users are involved as well.
and:

better Wifi coverage.

The thumbnails issue can be addressed in the settings of the file manager.
It will not create thumbnails and previews of any kind for any remote media that is above some pretty low size threshold by default.

That depends on the service providing the data.

Be aware that loading large folders may take a while if you want to load thumbnails too.

If your device supports it - you can get microSD with 512G dataspace

And you can get USB devices with huge storage capacity so tiny you barely notice them.

Assuming your network is operational, you can access network locations via Dolphin, as long as the prerequisite software is installed.

pacman -Qs kio

I have the following installed:

local/kio 6.6.0-1 (kf6)
    Resource and network access abstraction
local/kio-extras 24.08.1-1 (kde-applications kde-network)
    Additional components to increase the functionality of KIO
local/kio-fuse 5.1.0-3
    FUSE interface for KIO
local/kio-gdrive 24.08.1-1 (kde-applications kde-network)
    KIO Slave to access Google Drive
local/kio5 5.116.0-1 (kf5)
    Resource and network access abstraction

At minimum, make sure kio (and kio5) and kio-extras (and probably kio-fuse) are installed – kio5 will eventually not be needed, once KDE is fully transitioned to Qt6.

kio-gdrive is only needed if you want access to Google Drive (the actual Google Drive client seems to fail miserably, in my experience).


The KIO framework implements most file management functions needed; Dolphin (and the KDE file dialog) uses it to provide network-enabled file management.

Local as well as HTTP and FTP file access is supported by default, and other protocols are supported via plugins (such as SSH access support).


When everything is in place, you can choose Add Network Folder (find this in Dolphin → Remote → Network) and follow the prompts to add a new network location.

I hope this helps. Cheers.

What do you mean by “best”?
There are many definitions of “best” : Fastest, most reliable, and best in terms of security & privacy?
If so, my short answer: SFTP.


NFS

Pros:

  • No password required for access (ideal for your trusted environments).
  • Good transfer speed for multiple files.
  • NFS driver is integrated into both the Linux and FreeBSD kernels.
  • Suitable for live video streaming, as it doesn’t require files to be transferred to the client first.

Cons:

  • Not secure on public networks – file transfers are unencrypted and readable by others. (This is fine if privacy isn’t a concern in your home network.)
  • Limited OS support: NFS is for Linux and FreeBSD, but it’s not natively supported on Windows or Android.
  • Unreliable for some apps when NFS connection fails or server goes offline. For example, NFS disconnection can cause KDE Dolphin to freeze, requiring either waiting for the connection to come back or forcefully killing KDE Dolphin process manually.
  • Not as robust for high-latency or unreliable networks, as interruptions can cause issues.

SMB

Pros:

  • Many OS support: Android, Linux, Windows, macOS, and more.
  • Suitable for live video streaming, similar to NFS.
  • Supports encrypted connections

Cons:

  • Slower than NFS when transferring large numbers of small files.
  • Developed by Microsoft. But if you trust SMB source then fine.
  • Can be more complex to configure correctly for optimal security (e.g., setting up encrypted connections).

SFTP

Pros:

  • Many OS support.
  • Suitable for live video streaming, as it doesn’t require files to be transferred to the client first.
  • Alway use encrypted SSH connections without requiring password.
  • Reliable: even if the connection fails, applications like KDE Dolphin won’t freeze, and it handles disconnections gracefully.
  • Better suited for public or untrusted networks due to strong encryption.
  • Faster than SMB. Similar speed to NFS transfer, I have not noticed any difference in performance.

Cons:

  • Requires a little knowledge of SSH setup on both the client and server

FTP

Pros:

  • Wide support: FTP is supported on almost all platforms
  • Fast transfer like SFTP.

Cons:

  • Unencrypted by default, but with a password
  • Not ideal for video live streaming: FTP is designed for batch file transfers before using files

As for the other protocols like HTTP, SCP, and others, I do not consider them in this comparison.

2 Likes

Okay great thanks for the in-depth details there! That’s perfect :+1:

I think I’ll give sftp a go first as I’m most familiar with that.

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