Is WebDAV supposed to be slower than FTP?

[Hooovahh]

So I'm writing some test code for file transfer between an RT device and a Windows host.  I'm writing this software before I have the hardware and am testing it by using a virtual machine running LabVIEW RT (Pharlap), but the actual hardware will be a cDAQ-9133 running RT Linux.

In doing some testing with this virtual machine I've noticed the FTP file transfer is much faster than a WebDAV transfer, both as a Put and a Get.  With a 140MB file, it takes about 7 seconds to Put using FTP, 14 seconds to put with WebDAV, 4 seconds to Get with FTP, and about 16 seconds to Get with WebDAV.  The actual network setup will just be a private network between the RT and the host, so I'm less concerned with security and am considering FTP.

So is WebDAV supposed to be more than twice as slow as FTP?  Is the RT Linux OS better or faster at using one over the other, and should I expect different results on the actual hardware?  Attached is my test VI I used.

[Sam_Sharp]

Have you turned off 'automatic network configuration' in Windows 7?

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/4EBE45E8A816B19386257B6C0071D025 (see the 'optional' step about improving WebDAV performance)

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2445570

[Hooovahh]

I did not, but changing doesn't seem to have helped.  I disabled in it IE then closed IE, and restarted LabVIEW and ran my test VI and it still took roughly the same amount of time, with WebDAV being about twice as slow.

[Sam_Sharp]

Ah, I think those changes might only apply if you're using windows explorer. Have you tried comparing the speeds you're getting from the LabVIEW API with other WebDAV clients (e.g. Windows Explorer, 3rd Party Application)? I wouldn't expect the speeds to be drastically different but then maybe the LabVIEW implementation isn't very good (not as mature as the FTP libraries).

[Hooovahh]

So I mapped the drive in Explorer and tried copying it from there.  Windows copy seems to do weird things with caching and showing it is "Discovering Files" when I believe it is actually copying them to a temp.  Even a command line copy would do some weird things like take 16 seconds to copy it once, then a few hundred milliseconds to copy it again.  But I believe it is around 16 seconds to actually transfer it with either Explorer, or a command line copy once the drive is mapped.  

For those that stumble on this thread for other WebDAV issues I noticed error 0x800700DF in the copy because a registry key limits the copy to 50MB.  After changing the registry you have to restart the WebClient service.

I also downloaded Cyberduck which supports WebDAV file transfers, and it too took about 16 seconds and showed about 8.8MBytes/s transfer rate with my 140MB file this is pretty close.

Filezilla takes about 4 seconds and shows around 30MBytes/s which is roughly what the command line FTP, and the LabVIEW FTP funtions take.

If someone has the hardware, could they run my VI I posted and post your results?  I'm just wondering if this is a symptom of my older Pharlap OS, with WebDAV on a virtual machine.

[Hooovahh]

So I finally got my real hardware and did some tests on the cDAQ 9132.  The setup was a single gigabit connection between the host and target running the RT Linux.  With the legacy FTP using an anonimous login, and the Webdav, using the same VI posted earlier (just with updated login information) the FTP Put would always be a little faster.

FTP Put was around 5.1s for the 142MB file, Webdav Put was around 6.3s.  FTP Get was around 1.2s and Webdav was also around 1.2s.

I also got varying results from sFTP using Filezilla, or sFTP using LabVIEW posted here, Windows mapped drives, and Cyberduck, but generally sFTP and FTP were faster than Webdav.  Maybe not by so much that it makes having login protection removed worth it.