diff --git a/sstables/row.cc b/sstables/row.cc
index e67efcd17a..8fcc378992 100644
--- a/sstables/row.cc
+++ b/sstables/row.cc
@@ -532,8 +532,9 @@ future<> data_consume_context::read() {
 
 data_consume_context sstable::data_consume_rows(
         row_consumer& consumer, uint64_t start, uint64_t end) {
+    auto estimated_size = std::min(uint64_t(sstable_buffer_size), align_up(end - start, uint64_t(8 << 10)));
     return std::make_unique<data_consume_context::impl>(
-            consumer, data_stream_at(start), end - start);
+            consumer, data_stream_at(start, estimated_size), end - start);
 }
 
 data_consume_context sstable::data_consume_rows(row_consumer& consumer) {
diff --git a/sstables/sstables.cc b/sstables/sstables.cc
index 8713239c8a..bd7652d665 100644
--- a/sstables/sstables.cc
+++ b/sstables/sstables.cc
@@ -1470,12 +1470,12 @@ sstable::component_type sstable::component_from_sstring(sstring &s) {
     return reverse_map(s, _component_map);
 }
 
-input_stream<char> sstable::data_stream_at(uint64_t pos) {
+input_stream<char> sstable::data_stream_at(uint64_t pos, uint64_t buf_size) {
     if (_compression) {
         return make_compressed_file_input_stream(
                 _data_file, &_compression, pos);
     } else {
-        return make_file_input_stream(_data_file, pos);
+        return make_file_input_stream(_data_file, pos, buf_size);
     }
 }
 
diff --git a/sstables/sstables.hh b/sstables/sstables.hh
index 27e4b96d86..69e53068cd 100644
--- a/sstables/sstables.hh
+++ b/sstables/sstables.hh
@@ -334,7 +334,7 @@ private:
 
     future<index_list> read_indexes(uint64_t summary_idx);
 
-    input_stream<char> data_stream_at(uint64_t pos);
+    input_stream<char> data_stream_at(uint64_t pos, uint64_t buf_size = 8192);
 
     // Read exactly the specific byte range from the data file (after
     // uncompression, if the file is compressed). This can be used to read