diff --git a/libs/remote_storage/src/config.rs b/libs/remote_storage/src/config.rs
index dae141bf77..ff34158c9c 100644
--- a/libs/remote_storage/src/config.rs
+++ b/libs/remote_storage/src/config.rs
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};
 
 use crate::{
     DEFAULT_MAX_KEYS_PER_LIST_RESPONSE, DEFAULT_REMOTE_STORAGE_AZURE_CONCURRENCY_LIMIT,
-    DEFAULT_REMOTE_STORAGE_S3_CONCURRENCY_LIMIT,
+    DEFAULT_REMOTE_STORAGE_LOCALFS_CONCURRENCY_LIMIT, DEFAULT_REMOTE_STORAGE_S3_CONCURRENCY_LIMIT,
 };
 
 /// External backup storage configuration, enough for creating a client for that storage.
@@ -45,11 +45,11 @@ impl RemoteStorageKind {
 
 impl RemoteStorageConfig {
     /// Helper to fetch the configured concurrency limit.
-    pub fn concurrency_limit(&self) -> Option<usize> {
+    pub fn concurrency_limit(&self) -> usize {
         match &self.storage {
-            RemoteStorageKind::LocalFs { .. } => None,
-            RemoteStorageKind::AwsS3(c) => Some(c.concurrency_limit.into()),
-            RemoteStorageKind::AzureContainer(c) => Some(c.concurrency_limit.into()),
+            RemoteStorageKind::LocalFs { .. } => DEFAULT_REMOTE_STORAGE_LOCALFS_CONCURRENCY_LIMIT,
+            RemoteStorageKind::AwsS3(c) => c.concurrency_limit.into(),
+            RemoteStorageKind::AzureContainer(c) => c.concurrency_limit.into(),
         }
     }
 }
diff --git a/libs/remote_storage/src/lib.rs b/libs/remote_storage/src/lib.rs
index 7a864151ec..69b522d63e 100644
--- a/libs/remote_storage/src/lib.rs
+++ b/libs/remote_storage/src/lib.rs
@@ -65,6 +65,12 @@ pub const DEFAULT_REMOTE_STORAGE_S3_CONCURRENCY_LIMIT: usize = 100;
 /// Here, a limit of max 20k concurrent connections was noted.
 /// <https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1301863/is-there-any-limitation-to-concurrent-connections>
 pub const DEFAULT_REMOTE_STORAGE_AZURE_CONCURRENCY_LIMIT: usize = 100;
+/// Set this limit analogously to the S3 limit.
+///
+/// The local filesystem backend doesn't enforce a concurrency limit itself, but this also bounds
+/// the upload queue concurrency. Some tests create thousands of uploads, which slows down the
+/// quadratic scheduling of the upload queue, and there is no point spawning so many Tokio tasks.
+pub const DEFAULT_REMOTE_STORAGE_LOCALFS_CONCURRENCY_LIMIT: usize = 100;
 /// No limits on the client side, which currenltly means 1000 for AWS S3.
 /// <https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/API/API_ListObjectsV2.html#API_ListObjectsV2_RequestSyntax>
 pub const DEFAULT_MAX_KEYS_PER_LIST_RESPONSE: Option<i32> = None;
diff --git a/pageserver/src/tenant/remote_timeline_client.rs b/pageserver/src/tenant/remote_timeline_client.rs
index bcba6d1f62..ad6d8dfae8 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/tenant/remote_timeline_client.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/tenant/remote_timeline_client.rs
@@ -437,8 +437,7 @@ impl RemoteTimelineClient {
             .conf
             .remote_storage_config
             .as_ref()
-            .and_then(|r| r.concurrency_limit())
-            .unwrap_or(0);
+            .map_or(0, |r| r.concurrency_limit());
         let mut upload_queue = self.upload_queue.lock().unwrap();
         upload_queue.initialize_with_current_remote_index_part(index_part, inprogress_limit)?;
         self.update_remote_physical_size_gauge(Some(index_part));
@@ -461,8 +460,7 @@ impl RemoteTimelineClient {
             .conf
             .remote_storage_config
             .as_ref()
-            .and_then(|r| r.concurrency_limit())
-            .unwrap_or(0);
+            .map_or(0, |r| r.concurrency_limit());
         let mut upload_queue = self.upload_queue.lock().unwrap();
         upload_queue.initialize_empty_remote(local_metadata, inprogress_limit)?;
         self.update_remote_physical_size_gauge(None);
@@ -484,8 +482,7 @@ impl RemoteTimelineClient {
             .conf
             .remote_storage_config
             .as_ref()
-            .and_then(|r| r.concurrency_limit())
-            .unwrap_or(0);
+            .map_or(0, |r| r.concurrency_limit());
 
         let mut upload_queue = self.upload_queue.lock().unwrap();
         upload_queue.initialize_with_current_remote_index_part(index_part, inprogress_limit)?;