diff --git a/server/src/internalClusterTest/java/org/elasticsearch/snapshots/BlobStoreIncrementalityIT.java b/server/src/internalClusterTest/java/org/elasticsearch/snapshots/BlobStoreIncrementalityIT.java
index 4c278aeddb5bf..e3fdb92785503 100644
--- a/server/src/internalClusterTest/java/org/elasticsearch/snapshots/BlobStoreIncrementalityIT.java
+++ b/server/src/internalClusterTest/java/org/elasticsearch/snapshots/BlobStoreIncrementalityIT.java
@@ -197,7 +197,7 @@ public void testRecordCorrectSegmentCountsWithBackgroundMerges() throws Exceptio
 
         // create a situation where we temporarily have a bunch of segments until the merges can catch up
         long id = 0;
-        final int rounds = scaledRandomIntBetween(3, 5);
+        final int rounds = scaledRandomIntBetween(5, 9);
         for (int i = 0; i < rounds; ++i) {
             final int numDocs = scaledRandomIntBetween(100, 1000);
             BulkRequestBuilder request = client().prepareBulk().setRefreshPolicy(WriteRequest.RefreshPolicy.IMMEDIATE);