diff --git a/internal/restorer/filerestorer.go b/internal/restorer/filerestorer.go
index f2e2cf24a..99a460321 100644
--- a/internal/restorer/filerestorer.go
+++ b/internal/restorer/filerestorer.go
@@ -242,8 +242,33 @@ func (r *fileRestorer) downloadPack(ctx context.Context, pack *packInfo) error {
 
 	// track already processed blobs for precise error reporting
 	processedBlobs := restic.NewBlobSet()
-	err := r.downloadBlobs(ctx, pack.id, blobs, processedBlobs)
+	for _, entry := range blobs {
+		occurrences := 0
+		for _, offsets := range entry.files {
+			occurrences += len(offsets)
+		}
+		// With a maximum blob size of 8MB, the normal blob streaming has to write
+		// at most 800MB for a single blob. This should be short enough to avoid
+		// network connection timeouts. Based on a quick test, a limit of 100 only
+		// selects a very small number of blobs (the number of references per blob
+		// - aka. `count` - seem to follow a expontential distribution)
+		if occurrences > 100 {
+			// process frequently referenced blobs first as these can take a long time to write
+			// which can cause backend connections to time out
+			delete(blobs, entry.blob.ID)
+			partialBlobs := blobToFileOffsetsMapping{entry.blob.ID: entry}
+			err := r.downloadBlobs(ctx, pack.id, partialBlobs, processedBlobs)
+			if err := r.reportError(blobs, processedBlobs, err); err != nil {
+				return err
+			}
+		}
+	}
 
+	if len(blobs) == 0 {
+		return nil
+	}
+
+	err := r.downloadBlobs(ctx, pack.id, blobs, processedBlobs)
 	return r.reportError(blobs, processedBlobs, err)
 }
 
diff --git a/internal/restorer/filerestorer_test.go b/internal/restorer/filerestorer_test.go
index 94b068159..c5bc3fe31 100644
--- a/internal/restorer/filerestorer_test.go
+++ b/internal/restorer/filerestorer_test.go
@@ -248,6 +248,27 @@ func TestFileRestorerPackSkip(t *testing.T) {
 	}
 }
 
+func TestFileRestorerFrequentBlob(t *testing.T) {
+	tempdir := rtest.TempDir(t)
+
+	for _, sparse := range []bool{false, true} {
+		blobs := []TestBlob{
+			{"data1-1", "pack1-1"},
+		}
+		for i := 0; i < 10000; i++ {
+			blobs = append(blobs, TestBlob{"a", "pack1-1"})
+		}
+		blobs = append(blobs, TestBlob{"end", "pack1-1"})
+
+		restoreAndVerify(t, tempdir, []TestFile{
+			{
+				name:  "file1",
+				blobs: blobs,
+			},
+		}, nil, sparse)
+	}
+}
+
 func TestErrorRestoreFiles(t *testing.T) {
 	tempdir := rtest.TempDir(t)
 	content := []TestFile{