diff --git a/src/libstd/io/mod.rs b/src/libstd/io/mod.rs
index 0f988c7623e38..bcce8ee6abf44 100644
--- a/src/libstd/io/mod.rs
+++ b/src/libstd/io/mod.rs
@@ -292,7 +292,7 @@ mod lazy;
 mod util;
 mod stdio;
 
-const DEFAULT_BUF_SIZE: usize = 64 * 1024;
+const DEFAULT_BUF_SIZE: usize = 8 * 1024;
 
 // A few methods below (read_to_string, read_line) will append data into a
 // `String` buffer, but we need to be pretty careful when doing this. The