diff --git a/libtransmission/makemeta.c b/libtransmission/makemeta.c
index 0ff178532..16908d041 100644
--- a/libtransmission/makemeta.c
+++ b/libtransmission/makemeta.c
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
  * the Transmission project.
  */
 
+#include <math.h>
 #include <sys/types.h>
 #include <sys/stat.h>
 #include <unistd.h>
@@ -73,22 +74,39 @@ getFiles( const char        * dir,
 }
 
 static int
-bestPieceSize( uint64_t totalSize )
+bestPieceSize( uint64_t totalSize, uint64_t fileCount )
 {
-    const int MiB = 1048576;
-    const int GiB = totalSize / (uint64_t)1073741824;
+    int pieceSize = 1;
+    const int minPieceSize = 65536; /* arbitrary; 2^16 */
+    const int maxPieceSize = 16777216; /* arbitrary; 2^24 */
+    const int desiredMinPiecesPerFile = 15; /* arbitrary */
+    uint64_t log;
 
-    /* almost always best to have a piee size of 512 or 256 kb.
-       common practice seems to be to bump up to 1MB pieces at
-       at total size of around 8GiB or so */
+    /* start off in the range of (1024..2048] pieces
+       for "normal" torrents... */
+    log = totalSize;
+    while( log > 2048 ) {
+        log >>= 1;
+        pieceSize <<= 1;
+    }
 
-    if( GiB >= 8 )
-        return MiB;
+    /* special case 1: torrents with a lot of small files.
+       try to have a reasonable number of pieces per file,
+       which will reduce overhead on selective downloading
+       and increase swarm speed. */
+    while( totalSize/pieceSize < (fileCount * desiredMinPiecesPerFile) ) {
+        const int swap = pieceSize >> 1;
+        if( swap < minPieceSize )
+            break;
+        pieceSize = swap;
+    }
 
-    if( GiB >= 1 )
-        return MiB / 2;
+    /* special case 2: enormous single-file torrents. our normal
+       case creates unwieldly piece sizes in that case */
+    while( pieceSize < maxPieceSize )
+        pieceSize >>= 1;
 
-    return MiB / 4;
+    return pieceSize;
 }
 
 static int
@@ -148,7 +166,7 @@ tr_metaInfoBuilderCreate( tr_handle_t * handle, const char * topFile )
            sizeof(tr_metainfo_builder_file_t),
            builderFileCompare );
 
-    ret->pieceSize = bestPieceSize( ret->totalSize );
+    ret->pieceSize = bestPieceSize( ret->totalSize, ret->fileCount );
     ret->pieceCount = (int)( ret->totalSize / ret->pieceSize);
     if( ret->totalSize % ret->pieceSize )
         ++ret->pieceCount;