diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 506ff96be1c..26d02975eef 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -44,6 +44,8 @@ Hbase Change Log
    HBASE-436   website: http://hadoop.apache.org/hbase
    HBASE-417   Factor TableOperation and subclasses into separate files from
                HMaster (Bryan Duxbury via Stack)
+   HBASE-440   Add optional log roll interval so that log files are garbage
+               collected
 
 
 Branch 0.1
diff --git a/conf/hbase-default.xml b/conf/hbase-default.xml
index da4a7e01463..f40527bb530 100644
--- a/conf/hbase-default.xml
+++ b/conf/hbase-default.xml
@@ -155,6 +155,16 @@
     Default: 30 minutes (in miliseconds)
     </description>
   </property>
+  <property>
+    <name>hbase.regionserver.optionallogrollinterval</name>
+    <value>1800000</value>
+    <description>
+    Amount of time to wait since the last time a the region server's log was
+    rolled before invoking an optional log roll (An optional log roll is a
+    one in which the log does not contain hbase.regionserver.maxlogentries).
+    Default: 30 minutes (in miliseconds)
+    </description>
+  </property>
   <property>
     <name>hbase.hregion.memcache.flush.size</name>
     <value>67108864</value>
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HRegionServer.java b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HRegionServer.java
index 8978a0667c3..57cd8767d8d 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HRegionServer.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HRegionServer.java
@@ -508,12 +508,17 @@ public class HRegionServer implements HConstants, HRegionInterface, Runnable {
   /** Runs periodically to determine if the HLog should be rolled */
   class LogRoller extends Thread implements LogRollListener {
     private final Integer rollLock = new Integer(0);
+    private final long optionalLogRollInterval;
+    private long lastLogRollTime;
     private volatile boolean rollLog;
     
     /** constructor */
     public LogRoller() {
       super();
+      this.optionalLogRollInterval = conf.getLong(
+          "hbase.regionserver.optionallogrollinterval", 30L * 60L * 1000L);
       this.rollLog = false;
+      lastLogRollTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
     }
  
     /** {@inheritDoc} */
@@ -521,12 +526,18 @@ public class HRegionServer implements HConstants, HRegionInterface, Runnable {
     public void run() {
       while (!stopRequested.get()) {
         while (!rollLog && !stopRequested.get()) {
-          synchronized (rollLock) {
-            try {
-              rollLock.wait(threadWakeFrequency);
+          long now = System.currentTimeMillis();
+          if (this.lastLogRollTime + this.optionalLogRollInterval <= now) {
+            rollLog = true;
+            this.lastLogRollTime = now;
+          } else {
+            synchronized (rollLock) {
+              try {
+                rollLock.wait(threadWakeFrequency);
 
-            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
-              continue;
+              } catch (InterruptedException e) {
+                continue;
+              }
             }
           }
         }