diff --git a/solr/CHANGES.txt b/solr/CHANGES.txt
index e1af396aefe..150e918f32f 100644
--- a/solr/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/solr/CHANGES.txt
@@ -81,7 +81,6 @@ Optimizations
   speedups were up to 2.5x for production of filters, and up to 10x for query evaluation with
   embedded term range queres that resulted in filter cache hits.  (yonik)
 
-
 Other Changes
 ----------------------
 
@@ -107,6 +106,7 @@ Other Changes
 * SOLR-7441: Improve overall robustness of the Streaming stack: Streaming API,
              Streaming Expressions, Parallel SQL (Joel Bernstein)
 
+* SOLR-8132: HDFSDirectoryFactory now defaults to using the global block cache. (Mark Miller)
 
 ==================  5.4.0 ==================
 
diff --git a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/core/HdfsDirectoryFactory.java b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/core/HdfsDirectoryFactory.java
index a67338b0a1a..8ba779e71fe 100644
--- a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/core/HdfsDirectoryFactory.java
+++ b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/core/HdfsDirectoryFactory.java
@@ -61,7 +61,6 @@ import org.slf4j.Logger;
 import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
 
 import com.google.common.annotations.VisibleForTesting;
-import com.google.common.base.Preconditions;
 import com.google.common.cache.CacheBuilder;
 import com.google.common.cache.RemovalListener;
 import com.google.common.cache.RemovalNotification;
@@ -184,7 +183,7 @@ public class HdfsDirectoryFactory extends CachingDirectoryFactory implements Sol
     }
     
     boolean blockCacheEnabled = getConfig(BLOCKCACHE_ENABLED, true);
-    boolean blockCacheGlobal = getConfig(BLOCKCACHE_GLOBAL, false); // default to false for back compat
+    boolean blockCacheGlobal = getConfig(BLOCKCACHE_GLOBAL, true);
     boolean blockCacheReadEnabled = getConfig(BLOCKCACHE_READ_ENABLED, true);
     
     final HdfsDirectory hdfsDir;
diff --git a/solr/core/src/test-files/solr/collection1/conf/solrconfig-tlog-with-delayingcomponent.xml b/solr/core/src/test-files/solr/collection1/conf/solrconfig-tlog-with-delayingcomponent.xml
index 6184891c2f5..a9cfed96c95 100644
--- a/solr/core/src/test-files/solr/collection1/conf/solrconfig-tlog-with-delayingcomponent.xml
+++ b/solr/core/src/test-files/solr/collection1/conf/solrconfig-tlog-with-delayingcomponent.xml
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@
     <int name="solr.hdfs.blockcache.blocksperbank">${solr.hdfs.blockcache.blocksperbank:1024}</int>
     <str name="solr.hdfs.home">${solr.hdfs.home:}</str>
     <str name="solr.hdfs.confdir">${solr.hdfs.confdir:}</str>
-    <str name="solr.hdfs.blockcache.global">${solr.hdfs.blockcache.global:false}</str>
+    <str name="solr.hdfs.blockcache.global">${solr.hdfs.blockcache.global:true}</str>
   </directoryFactory>
 
   <dataDir>${solr.data.dir:}</dataDir>
diff --git a/solr/core/src/test-files/solr/collection1/conf/solrconfig-tlog.xml b/solr/core/src/test-files/solr/collection1/conf/solrconfig-tlog.xml
index 41a7edea474..37290a95faf 100644
--- a/solr/core/src/test-files/solr/collection1/conf/solrconfig-tlog.xml
+++ b/solr/core/src/test-files/solr/collection1/conf/solrconfig-tlog.xml
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@
     <int name="solr.hdfs.blockcache.blocksperbank">${solr.hdfs.blockcache.blocksperbank:1024}</int>
     <str name="solr.hdfs.home">${solr.hdfs.home:}</str>
     <str name="solr.hdfs.confdir">${solr.hdfs.confdir:}</str>
-    <str name="solr.hdfs.blockcache.global">${solr.hdfs.blockcache.global:false}</str>
+    <str name="solr.hdfs.blockcache.global">${solr.hdfs.blockcache.global:true}</str>
   </directoryFactory>
   
   <dataDir>${solr.data.dir:}</dataDir>