diff --git a/src/create_torrent.cpp b/src/create_torrent.cpp
index c5b8ec558..507c026e6 100644
--- a/src/create_torrent.cpp
+++ b/src/create_torrent.cpp
@@ -308,7 +308,8 @@ namespace libtorrent
 		int piece_counter = 0;
 		int completed_piece = 0;
 		int piece_read_ahead = 16 * 1024 * 1024 / t.piece_length();
-		if (piece_read_ahead < 6) piece_read_ahead = 6;
+		// at least 4 jobs at a time per thread
+		if (piece_read_ahead < 12) piece_read_ahead = 12;
 
 		for (int i = 0; i < piece_read_ahead; ++i)
 		{
diff --git a/src/torrent.cpp b/src/torrent.cpp
index b00a5098c..e5a6d72ef 100644
--- a/src/torrent.cpp
+++ b/src/torrent.cpp
@@ -2764,9 +2764,9 @@ namespace {
 		int num_outstanding = settings().get_int(settings_pack::checking_mem_usage) * block_size()
 			/ m_torrent_file->piece_length();
 		// if we only keep a single read operation in-flight at a time, we suffer
-		// significant performance degradation. Always keep at least two jobs
+		// significant performance degradation. Always keep at least 4 jobs
 		// outstanding per hasher thread
-		int const min_outstanding = 2
+		int const min_outstanding = 4
 			* std::max(1, settings().get_int(settings_pack::aio_threads)
 				/ disk_io_thread::hasher_thread_divisor);
 		if (num_outstanding < min_outstanding) num_outstanding = min_outstanding;