diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 192432c3686..aa23e7ccf72 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -13,6 +13,8 @@ Release 0.21.0 - Unreleased
    HBASE-1770  HTable.setWriteBufferSize does not flush the writeBuffer when
                its size is set to a value lower than its current size.
                (Mathias via jgray)
+   HBASE-1771  PE sequentialWrite is 7x slower because of
+               MemStoreFlusher#checkStoreFileCount
 
   OPTIMIZATIONS
 
diff --git a/conf/hbase-default.xml b/conf/hbase-default.xml
index da67cdf0133..99797f4475f 100644
--- a/conf/hbase-default.xml
+++ b/conf/hbase-default.xml
@@ -327,6 +327,26 @@
     If too large, clients timeout during compaction.
     </description>
   </property>
+  <property>
+    <name>hbase.hstore.blockingStoreFiles</name>
+    <value>7</value>
+    <description>
+    If more than this number of StoreFiles in any one Store
+    (one StoreFile is written per flush of MemStore) then updates are
+    blocked for this HRegion until a compaction is completed, or
+    until hbase.hstore.blockingWaitTime has been exceeded.
+    </description>
+  </property>
+  <property>
+    <name>hbase.hstore.blockingWaitTime</name>
+    <value>90000</value>
+    <description>
+    The time an HRegion will block updates for after hitting the StoreFile
+    limit defined by hbase.hstore.blockingStoreFiles.
+    After this time has elapsed, the HRegion will stop blocking updates even
+    if a compaction has not been completed.  Default: 90 seconds.
+    </description>
+  </property>
   <property>
     <name>hbase.hstore.compaction.max</name>
     <value>10</value>