diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 406304f125d..ee4aa9b58c5 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -211,6 +211,7 @@ Release 0.21.0 - Unreleased
                Andrew Purtell)
    HBASE-1995  Add configurable max value size check (Lars George via Andrew
                Purtell)
+   HBASE-2017  Set configurable max value size check to 10MB
 
   NEW FEATURES
    HBASE-1901  "General" partitioner for "hbase-48" bulk (behind the api, write
diff --git a/conf/hbase-default.xml b/conf/hbase-default.xml
index 040bf9e4e39..c1f52a22790 100644
--- a/conf/hbase-default.xml
+++ b/conf/hbase-default.xml
@@ -138,7 +138,7 @@
   </property>
   <property>
     <name>hbase.client.keyvalue.maxsize</name>
-    <value>-1</value>
+    <value>10485760</value>
     <description>Specifies the combined maximum allowed size of a KeyValue
     instance. This is to set an upper boundary for a single entry saved in a
     storage file. Since they cannot be split it helps avoiding that a region