diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index c89cb456c5e..654cbebade8 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -137,6 +137,9 @@ Release 2.0.1-alpha - UNRELEASED
     HDFS-3306. fuse_dfs: don't lock release operations.
     (Colin Patrick McCabe via eli)
 
+    HDFS-3612. Single namenode image directory config warning can
+    be improved. (Andy Isaacson via harsh)
+
   OPTIMIZATIONS
 
     HDFS-2982. Startup performance suffers when there are many edit log
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/FSNamesystem.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/FSNamesystem.java
index b80e7a8496f..f3579f0d822 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/FSNamesystem.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/FSNamesystem.java
@@ -378,12 +378,14 @@ public class FSNamesystem implements Namesystem, FSClusterStats,
       throws IOException {
 
     if (namespaceDirs.size() == 1) {
-      LOG.warn("Only one " + DFS_NAMENODE_NAME_DIR_KEY
-          + " directory configured , beware data loss!");
+      LOG.warn("Only one image storage directory ("
+          + DFS_NAMENODE_NAME_DIR_KEY + ") configured. Beware of dataloss"
+          + " due to lack of redundant storage directories!");
     }
     if (namespaceEditsDirs.size() == 1) {
-      LOG.warn("Only one " + DFS_NAMENODE_EDITS_DIR_KEY
-          + " directory configured , beware data loss!");
+      LOG.warn("Only one namespace edits storage directory ("
+          + DFS_NAMENODE_EDITS_DIR_KEY + ") configured. Beware of dataloss"
+          + " due to lack of redundant storage directories!");
     }
 
     FSImage fsImage = new FSImage(conf, namespaceDirs, namespaceEditsDirs);