diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/vm/compaction_test.c b/tools/testing/selftests/vm/compaction_test.c
index 309b3750e57e..38fec412206b 100644
--- a/tools/testing/selftests/vm/compaction_test.c
+++ b/tools/testing/selftests/vm/compaction_test.c
@@ -89,6 +89,8 @@ int check_compaction(unsigned long mem_free, unsigned long hugepage_size)
 	int compaction_index = 0;
 	char initial_nr_hugepages[20] = {0};
 	char nr_hugepages[20] = {0};
+	char target_nr_hugepages[24] = {0};
+	int slen;
 
 	/* We want to test with 80% of available memory. Else, OOM killer comes
 	   in to play */
@@ -119,11 +121,18 @@ int check_compaction(unsigned long mem_free, unsigned long hugepage_size)
 
 	lseek(fd, 0, SEEK_SET);
 
-	/* Request a large number of huge pages. The Kernel will allocate
-	   as much as it can */
-	if (write(fd, "100000", (6*sizeof(char))) != (6*sizeof(char))) {
-		ksft_print_msg("Failed to write 100000 to /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages: %s\n",
-			       strerror(errno));
+	/*
+	 * Request huge pages for about half of the free memory. The Kernel
+	 * will allocate as much as it can, and we expect it will get at least 1/3
+	 */
+	nr_hugepages_ul = mem_free / hugepage_size / 2;
+	snprintf(target_nr_hugepages, sizeof(target_nr_hugepages),
+		 "%lu", nr_hugepages_ul);
+
+	slen = strlen(target_nr_hugepages);
+	if (write(fd, target_nr_hugepages, slen) != slen) {
+		ksft_print_msg("Failed to write %lu to /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages: %s\n",
+			       nr_hugepages_ul, strerror(errno));
 		goto close_fd;
 	}