diff --git a/hbase-mapreduce/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/TestPerformanceEvaluation.java b/hbase-mapreduce/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/TestPerformanceEvaluation.java
index ab938577f1d..b2a89c87eb0 100644
--- a/hbase-mapreduce/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/TestPerformanceEvaluation.java
+++ b/hbase-mapreduce/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/TestPerformanceEvaluation.java
@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ import org.apache.hadoop.fs.FileSystem;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.PerformanceEvaluation.RandomReadTest;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.PerformanceEvaluation.TestOptions;
+import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.regionserver.CompactingMemStore;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.testclassification.MiscTests;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.testclassification.SmallTests;
 import org.junit.ClassRule;
@@ -56,6 +57,19 @@ public class TestPerformanceEvaluation {
 
   private static final HBaseTestingUtility HTU = new HBaseTestingUtility();
 
+  @Test
+  public void testDefaultInMemoryCompaction() {
+    PerformanceEvaluation.TestOptions defaultOpts =
+        new PerformanceEvaluation.TestOptions();
+    assertEquals(CompactingMemStore.COMPACTING_MEMSTORE_TYPE_DEFAULT.toString(),
+        defaultOpts.getInMemoryCompaction().toString());
+    HTableDescriptor htd = PerformanceEvaluation.getTableDescriptor(defaultOpts);
+    for (HColumnDescriptor hcd: htd.getFamilies()) {
+      assertEquals(CompactingMemStore.COMPACTING_MEMSTORE_TYPE_DEFAULT.toString(),
+          hcd.getInMemoryCompaction().toString());
+    }
+  }
+
   @Test
   public void testSerialization()
   throws JsonGenerationException, JsonMappingException, IOException {
diff --git a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/CompactingMemStore.java b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/CompactingMemStore.java
index 68d7d7ec2bc..c1b061a01c0 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/CompactingMemStore.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/CompactingMemStore.java
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ public class CompactingMemStore extends AbstractMemStore {
   public static final String COMPACTING_MEMSTORE_TYPE_KEY =
       "hbase.hregion.compacting.memstore.type";
   public static final String COMPACTING_MEMSTORE_TYPE_DEFAULT =
-      String.valueOf(MemoryCompactionPolicy.BASIC);
+      String.valueOf(MemoryCompactionPolicy.NONE);
   // Default fraction of in-memory-flush size w.r.t. flush-to-disk size
   public static final String IN_MEMORY_FLUSH_THRESHOLD_FACTOR_KEY =
       "hbase.memstore.inmemoryflush.threshold.factor";