diff --git a/src/networking.c b/src/networking.c
index 23f1c21837..9f4fec0d71 100644
--- a/src/networking.c
+++ b/src/networking.c
@@ -2684,9 +2684,13 @@ int processMultibulkBuffer(client *c) {
                 c->argv[c->argc++] = createObject(OBJ_STRING,c->querybuf);
                 c->argv_len_sum += c->bulklen;
                 sdsIncrLen(c->querybuf,-2); /* remove CRLF */
-                /* Assume that if we saw a fat argument we'll see another one
-                 * likely... */
-                c->querybuf = sdsnewlen(SDS_NOINIT,c->bulklen+2);
+                /* Assume that if we saw a fat argument we'll see another one likely...
+                 * But only if that fat argument is not too big compared to the memory limit. */
+                if (!server.maxmemory || (size_t)c->bulklen < server.maxmemory / 32) {
+                    c->querybuf = sdsnewlen(SDS_NOINIT,c->bulklen+2);
+                } else {
+                    c->querybuf = sdsnewlen(SDS_NOINIT, PROTO_IOBUF_LEN);
+                }
                 sdsclear(c->querybuf);
                 querybuf_len = sdslen(c->querybuf); /* Update cached length */
             } else {
diff --git a/tests/unit/maxmemory.tcl b/tests/unit/maxmemory.tcl
index 23a9daab89..62f5965a6b 100644
--- a/tests/unit/maxmemory.tcl
+++ b/tests/unit/maxmemory.tcl
@@ -1,4 +1,17 @@
 start_server {tags {"maxmemory" "external:skip"}} {
+
+    test {SET and RESTORE key nearly as large as the memory limit} {
+        r flushall
+        set used [s used_memory]
+        r config set maxmemory [expr {$used+10000000}]
+        r set foo [string repeat a 8000000]
+        set encoded [r dump foo]
+        r del foo
+        r restore foo 0 $encoded
+        r strlen foo
+    } {8000000} {logreqres:skip}
+
+    r flushall
     r config set maxmemory 11mb
     r config set maxmemory-policy allkeys-lru
     set server_pid [s process_id]