diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index f5ca8f110e..91e065f721 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 3.10
+ * Deprecate memtable_cleanup_threshold and update default for memtable_flush_writers (CASSANDRA-12228)
  * Upgrade to OHC 0.4.4 (CASSANDRA-12133)
  * Add version command to cassandra-stress (CASSANDRA-12258)
  * Create compaction-stress tool (CASSANDRA-11844)
diff --git a/conf/cassandra.yaml b/conf/cassandra.yaml
index aaabc2bd9c..e724941c10 100644
--- a/conf/cassandra.yaml
+++ b/conf/cassandra.yaml
@@ -471,6 +471,10 @@ concurrent_materialized_view_writes: 32
 # memtable_heap_space_in_mb: 2048
 # memtable_offheap_space_in_mb: 2048
 
+# memtable_cleanup_threshold is deprecated. The default calculation
+# is the only reasonable choice. See the comments on  memtable_flush_writers
+# for more information.
+#
 # Ratio of occupied non-flushing memtable size to total permitted size
 # that will trigger a flush of the largest memtable. Larger mct will
 # mean larger flushes and hence less compaction, but also less concurrent
@@ -504,15 +508,34 @@ memtable_allocation_type: heap_buffers
 #
 # commitlog_total_space_in_mb: 8192
 
-# This sets the amount of memtable flush writer threads.  These will
-# be blocked by disk io, and each one will hold a memtable in memory
-# while blocked.
+# This sets the number of memtable flush writer threads per disk
+# as well as the total number of memtables that can be flushed concurrently.
+# These are generally a combination of compute and IO bound.
 #
-# memtable_flush_writers defaults to one per data_file_directory.
+# Memtable flushing is more CPU efficient than memtable ingest and a single thread
+# can keep up with the ingest rate of a whole server on a single fast disk
+# until it temporarily becomes IO bound under contention typically with compaction.
+# At that point you need multiple flush threads. At some point in the future
+# it may become CPU bound all the time.
 #
-# If your data directories are backed by SSD, you can increase this, but
-# avoid having memtable_flush_writers * data_file_directories > number of cores
-#memtable_flush_writers: 1
+# You can tell if flushing is falling behind using the MemtablePool.BlockedOnAllocation
+# metric which should be 0, but will be non-zero if threads are blocked waiting on flushing
+# to free memory.
+#
+# memtable_flush_writers defaults to two for a single data directory.
+# This means that two  memtables can be flushed concurrently to the single data directory.
+# If you have multiple data directories the default is one memtable flushing at a time
+# but the flush will use a thread per data directory so you will get two or more writers.
+#
+# Two is generally enough to flush on a fast disk [array] mounted as a single data directory.
+# Adding more flush writers will result in smaller more frequent flushes that introduce more
+# compaction overhead.
+#
+# There is a direct tradeoff between number of memtables that can be flushed concurrently
+# and flush size and frequency. More is not better you just need enough flush writers
+# to never stall waiting for flushing to free memory.
+#
+#memtable_flush_writers: 2
 
 # Total space to use for change-data-capture logs on disk.
 #
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/config/Config.java b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/config/Config.java
index a4b42b730c..64f06b9930 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/config/Config.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/config/Config.java
@@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ public class Config
     @Deprecated
     public Integer concurrent_replicates = null;
 
-    public Integer memtable_flush_writers = 1;
+    public Integer memtable_flush_writers = null;
     public Integer memtable_heap_space_in_mb;
     public Integer memtable_offheap_space_in_mb;
     public Float memtable_cleanup_threshold = null;
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/config/DatabaseDescriptor.java b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/config/DatabaseDescriptor.java
index caf392522f..d74d4ad267 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/config/DatabaseDescriptor.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/config/DatabaseDescriptor.java
@@ -666,11 +666,22 @@ public class DatabaseDescriptor
         if (conf.hints_directory.equals(conf.saved_caches_directory))
             throw new ConfigurationException("saved_caches_directory must not be the same as the hints_directory", false);
 
+        if (conf.memtable_flush_writers == null)
+        {
+            conf.memtable_flush_writers = conf.data_file_directories.length == 1 ? 2 : 1;
+        }
+
         if (conf.memtable_flush_writers < 1)
             throw new ConfigurationException("memtable_flush_writers must be at least 1, but was " + conf.memtable_flush_writers, false);
 
         if (conf.memtable_cleanup_threshold == null)
+        {
             conf.memtable_cleanup_threshold = (float) (1.0 / (1 + conf.memtable_flush_writers));
+        }
+        else
+        {
+            logger.warn("memtable_cleanup_threshold has been deprecated and should be removed from cassandra.yaml");
+        }
 
         if (conf.memtable_cleanup_threshold < 0.01f)
             throw new ConfigurationException("memtable_cleanup_threshold must be >= 0.01, but was " + conf.memtable_cleanup_threshold, false);