diff --git a/borg/archive.py b/borg/archive.py
index 3edd45221..aba029f62 100644
--- a/borg/archive.py
+++ b/borg/archive.py
@@ -34,6 +34,9 @@ HASH_MASK_BITS = 16  # results in ~64kiB chunks statistically
 # defaults, use --chunker-params to override
 CHUNKER_PARAMS = (CHUNK_MIN_EXP, CHUNK_MAX_EXP, HASH_MASK_BITS, HASH_WINDOW_SIZE)
 
+# chunker params for the items metadata stream, finer granularity
+ITEMS_CHUNKER_PARAMS = (12, 16, 14, HASH_WINDOW_SIZE)
+
 utime_supports_fd = os.utime in getattr(os, 'supports_fd', {})
 utime_supports_follow_symlinks = os.utime in getattr(os, 'supports_follow_symlinks', {})
 has_mtime_ns = sys.version >= '3.3'
@@ -75,7 +78,7 @@ class DownloadPipeline:
 class ChunkBuffer:
     BUFFER_SIZE = 1 * 1024 * 1024
 
-    def __init__(self, key, chunker_params=CHUNKER_PARAMS):
+    def __init__(self, key, chunker_params=ITEMS_CHUNKER_PARAMS):
         self.buffer = BytesIO()
         self.packer = msgpack.Packer(unicode_errors='surrogateescape')
         self.chunks = []
@@ -110,7 +113,7 @@ class ChunkBuffer:
 
 class CacheChunkBuffer(ChunkBuffer):
 
-    def __init__(self, cache, key, stats, chunker_params=CHUNKER_PARAMS):
+    def __init__(self, cache, key, stats, chunker_params=ITEMS_CHUNKER_PARAMS):
         super().__init__(key, chunker_params)
         self.cache = cache
         self.stats = stats
@@ -150,7 +153,7 @@ class Archive:
         self.end = end
         self.pipeline = DownloadPipeline(self.repository, self.key)
         if create:
-            self.items_buffer = CacheChunkBuffer(self.cache, self.key, self.stats, chunker_params)
+            self.items_buffer = CacheChunkBuffer(self.cache, self.key, self.stats)
             self.chunker = Chunker(self.key.chunk_seed, *chunker_params)
             if name in manifest.archives:
                 raise self.AlreadyExists(name)
diff --git a/docs/internals.rst b/docs/internals.rst
index 5f3e96ec9..059b9893e 100644
--- a/docs/internals.rst
+++ b/docs/internals.rst
@@ -190,9 +190,11 @@ Each item represents a file, directory or other fs item and is stored as an
 it and it is reset every time an inode's metadata is changed.
 
 All items are serialized using msgpack and the resulting byte stream
-is fed into the same chunker used for regular file data and turned
-into deduplicated chunks. The reference to these chunks is then added
-to the archive metadata.
+is fed into the same chunker algorithm as used for regular file data
+and turned into deduplicated chunks. The reference to these chunks is then added
+to the archive metadata. To achieve a finer granularity on this metadata
+stream, we use different chunker params for this chunker, which result in
+smaller chunks.
 
 A chunk is stored as an object as well, of course.