diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index d17db41b7f3..c0eeb9cba36 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -39,6 +39,9 @@ Release 2.8.0 - UNRELEASED
     HADOOP-11660. Add support for hardware crc of HDFS checksums on ARM aarch64
     architecture (Edward Nevill via Colin P. McCabe)
 
+    HADOOP-9805. Refactor RawLocalFileSystem#rename for improved testability.
+    (Jean-Pierre Matsumoto via cnauroth)
+
   OPTIMIZATIONS
 
   BUG FIXES
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/RawLocalFileSystem.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/RawLocalFileSystem.java
index 0fae8cd8d71..1aea1baefab 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/RawLocalFileSystem.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/RawLocalFileSystem.java
@@ -43,7 +43,6 @@ import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.permission.FsPermission;
 import org.apache.hadoop.io.IOUtils;
 import org.apache.hadoop.io.nativeio.NativeIO;
-import org.apache.hadoop.io.nativeio.NativeIOException;
 import org.apache.hadoop.util.Progressable;
 import org.apache.hadoop.util.Shell;
 import org.apache.hadoop.util.StringUtils;
@@ -347,11 +346,29 @@ public class RawLocalFileSystem extends FileSystem {
       return true;
     }
 
-    // Enforce POSIX rename behavior that a source directory replaces an existing
-    // destination if the destination is an empty directory.  On most platforms,
-    // this is already handled by the Java API call above.  Some platforms
-    // (notably Windows) do not provide this behavior, so the Java API call above
-    // fails.  Delete destination and attempt rename again.
+    // Else try POSIX style rename on Windows only
+    if (Shell.WINDOWS &&
+        handleEmptyDstDirectoryOnWindows(src, srcFile, dst, dstFile)) {
+      return true;
+    }
+
+    // The fallback behavior accomplishes the rename by a full copy.
+    if (LOG.isDebugEnabled()) {
+      LOG.debug("Falling through to a copy of " + src + " to " + dst);
+    }
+    return FileUtil.copy(this, src, this, dst, true, getConf());
+  }
+
+  @VisibleForTesting
+  public final boolean handleEmptyDstDirectoryOnWindows(Path src, File srcFile,
+      Path dst, File dstFile) throws IOException {
+
+    // Enforce POSIX rename behavior that a source directory replaces an
+    // existing destination if the destination is an empty directory. On most
+    // platforms, this is already handled by the Java API call above. Some
+    // platforms (notably Windows) do not provide this behavior, so the Java API
+    // call renameTo(dstFile) fails. Delete destination and attempt rename
+    // again.
     if (this.exists(dst)) {
       FileStatus sdst = this.getFileStatus(dst);
       if (sdst.isDirectory() && dstFile.list().length == 0) {
@@ -364,12 +381,7 @@ public class RawLocalFileSystem extends FileSystem {
         }
       }
     }
-
-    // The fallback behavior accomplishes the rename by a full copy.
-    if (LOG.isDebugEnabled()) {
-      LOG.debug("Falling through to a copy of " + src + " to " + dst);
-    }
-    return FileUtil.copy(this, src, this, dst, true, getConf());
+    return false;
   }
 
   @Override
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/contract/rawlocal/TestRawlocalContractRename.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/contract/rawlocal/TestRawlocalContractRename.java
index 9e33b34fcb6..25611f11b1e 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/contract/rawlocal/TestRawlocalContractRename.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/contract/rawlocal/TestRawlocalContractRename.java
@@ -19,8 +19,13 @@
 package org.apache.hadoop.fs.contract.rawlocal;
 
 import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
+import org.apache.hadoop.fs.FileSystem;
+import org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path;
+import org.apache.hadoop.fs.RawLocalFileSystem;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.contract.AbstractContractRenameTest;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.contract.AbstractFSContract;
+import org.apache.hadoop.fs.contract.ContractTestUtils;
+import org.junit.Test;
 
 public class TestRawlocalContractRename extends AbstractContractRenameTest {
 
@@ -28,5 +33,47 @@ public class TestRawlocalContractRename extends AbstractContractRenameTest {
   protected AbstractFSContract createContract(Configuration conf) {
     return new RawlocalFSContract(conf);
   }
+  
+  /**
+   * Test fallback rename code <code>handleEmptyDstDirectoryOnWindows()</code>
+   * even on not Windows platform where the normal <code>File.renameTo()</code>
+   * is supposed to work well. This test has been added for HADOOP-9805.
+   * 
+   * @see AbstractContractRenameTest#testRenameWithNonEmptySubDirPOSIX()
+   */
+  @Test
+  public void testRenameWithNonEmptySubDirPOSIX() throws Throwable {
+    final Path renameTestDir = path("testRenameWithNonEmptySubDir");
+    final Path srcDir = new Path(renameTestDir, "src1");
+    final Path srcSubDir = new Path(srcDir, "sub");
+    final Path finalDir = new Path(renameTestDir, "dest");
+    FileSystem fs = getFileSystem();
+    ContractTestUtils.rm(fs, renameTestDir, true, false);
+
+    fs.mkdirs(srcDir);
+    fs.mkdirs(finalDir);
+    ContractTestUtils.writeTextFile(fs, new Path(srcDir, "source.txt"),
+        "this is the file in src dir", false);
+    ContractTestUtils.writeTextFile(fs, new Path(srcSubDir, "subfile.txt"),
+        "this is the file in src/sub dir", false);
+
+    ContractTestUtils.assertPathExists(fs, "not created in src dir",
+        new Path(srcDir, "source.txt"));
+    ContractTestUtils.assertPathExists(fs, "not created in src/sub dir",
+        new Path(srcSubDir, "subfile.txt"));
+    
+    RawLocalFileSystem rlfs = (RawLocalFileSystem) fs;
+    rlfs.handleEmptyDstDirectoryOnWindows(srcDir, rlfs.pathToFile(srcDir),
+        finalDir, rlfs.pathToFile(finalDir));
+    
+    // Accept only POSIX rename behavior in this test
+    ContractTestUtils.assertPathExists(fs, "not renamed into dest dir",
+        new Path(finalDir, "source.txt"));
+    ContractTestUtils.assertPathExists(fs, "not renamed into dest/sub dir",
+        new Path(finalDir, "sub/subfile.txt"));
+    
+    ContractTestUtils.assertPathDoesNotExist(fs, "not deleted",
+        new Path(srcDir, "source.txt"));
+  }
 
 }