I have an FTP server app running on my Android phone and Android tablet. I want to use FTP-file-system on my linux laptop and "mount"
my mobile device. Currently, I use a laptop-based FTP client and things work quite well.

Since the mobile device is not a screaming workstation, the laptop gets very slow responses. How do I tune FTP-file-system to tolerate a slow connection with my mobile devices?
NOTE -- I use FTP-FS for other things and want standard-response-time behavior for them.

I would prefer to use SSH-file-system on my laptop so that I might enjoy these features if I'm on a public LAN or hotspot instead of within a LAN where I control (or trust) the security. Does anyone know of an OpenSSH server app that does not require a rooted mobile device?

Some Details:

• laptop -- Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon, i5 cpu
• desktop -- Linux Mint 17 KDE, i7 cpu
• phone -- Samsung Galaxy Note-II, 'droid v4.4.2 (AT&T)
• tablet -- Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0, 'droid v4.4.2 (Samsung)
• SOHO LAN -- type-N wifi, 1000-base-T wire

merci d'avance,
~~~ 8d;-Dan

Follow-up:
My original post mentioned both FTP-file-system (FTPFS) and SSH-file-system (SSHFS). I found the following at FTP File System on SourceForge.

!!! This project has been obsoleted by LUFS (Linux UserLand FileSystem) which besides ftpfs supports sshfs and some others. Please use the new implementation. !!!

Looking at the LUFS page, it offers the following summary:

LUFS is a hybrid userspace filesystem framework supporting many "exotic" filesystems (localfs, sshfs, ftpfs, gnutellafs, locasefs, gvfs, cardfs, cefs, etc. ).

I'll start looking at 'LUFS' and I hope that other LQ colleagues have some experience with that package and are willing to share what they know.
Sadly, the LUFS project on SourceForge shows a date of 2013-06-04 for the latest update.

More Follow-up:
I found the following general article about using SSHfs and GVFS on "xmodulo" web site. Mount Folder Using SSH. It offers clear instructions for implementing a mounted file system using an SSH link to a remote host.

A companion article SSH Login without Passwords will guide you through the process to establish the public and private keys used for SSH authentication.

Some other background:
Remember that we are interested in the SSH-file-system. These utilities permit a client computer to create a mount-point to access remote folders and files over an SSH connection to the server computer. This server computer will also enable SSH-server software. It will also provide the disk resources we want to access. The client computer will need SSH-client software along with the various parts of the SSH-file-system suite.
For each connection, the client computer needs to provide credentials and authenticate with the server. These credentials might take the form of either a username+password or public-key.
In the project under consideration, we want the client computer to be a laptop or desktop workstation. We also want the server computer to be an Android phone or tablet mobile device.