wrapper.c | 13 +++++++++++--
 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/wrapper.c b/wrapper.c
index 6a015de5f056..e996f3dae467 100644
--- a/wrapper.c
+++ b/wrapper.c
@@ -131,6 +131,13 @@ void *xcalloc(size_t nmemb, size_t size)
 }
 
 /*
+ * Doing IO in huge chunks only results in pain. OS X is buggy,
+ * and even in the absense of bugs it can result in bad latencies
+ * when you decide to kill the process.
+ */
+#define MAX_IO_SIZE (8*1024*1024)
+
+/*
  * xread() is the same a read(), but it automatically restarts read()
  * operations with a recoverable error (EAGAIN and EINTR). xread()
  * DOES NOT GUARANTEE that "len" bytes is read even if the data is available.
@@ -139,7 +146,8 @@ ssize_t xread(int fd, void *buf, size_t len)
 {
 	ssize_t nr;
 	while (1) {
-		nr = read(fd, buf, len);
+		nr = len < MAX_IO_SIZE ? len : MAX_IO_SIZE;
+		nr = read(fd, buf, nr);
 		if ((nr < 0) && (errno == EAGAIN || errno == EINTR))
 			continue;
 		return nr;
@@ -155,7 +163,8 @@ ssize_t xwrite(int fd, const void *buf, size_t len)
 {
 	ssize_t nr;
 	while (1) {
-		nr = write(fd, buf, len);
+		nr = len < MAX_IO_SIZE ? len : MAX_IO_SIZE;
+		nr = write(fd, buf, nr);
 		if ((nr < 0) && (errno == EAGAIN || errno == EINTR))
 			continue;
 		return nr;