diff --git a/pkg/storage/utils/decomposedfs/metadata/ini_backend.go b/pkg/storage/utils/decomposedfs/metadata/ini_backend.go
index e3ca9dcd7d6..3e3dbe022da 100644
--- a/pkg/storage/utils/decomposedfs/metadata/ini_backend.go
+++ b/pkg/storage/utils/decomposedfs/metadata/ini_backend.go
@@ -288,7 +288,7 @@ func needsEncoding(s []byte) bool {
 	}
 
 	for i := 0; i < len(s); i++ {
-		if s[i] > unicode.MaxASCII {
+		if s[i] < 32 || s[i] >= unicode.MaxASCII { // ASCII 127 = Del - we don't want that
 			return true
 		}
 	}