diff --git a/pageserver/benches/bench_ingest.rs b/pageserver/benches/bench_ingest.rs
index 459394449a..9bab02e46c 100644
--- a/pageserver/benches/bench_ingest.rs
+++ b/pageserver/benches/bench_ingest.rs
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ use pageserver::{
     repository::Value,
     task_mgr::TaskKind,
     tenant::storage_layer::InMemoryLayer,
-    virtual_file::{self, api::IoEngineKind},
+    virtual_file,
 };
 use pageserver_api::{key::Key, shard::TenantShardId};
 use utils::{
@@ -149,7 +149,7 @@ fn criterion_benchmark(c: &mut Criterion) {
     let conf: &'static PageServerConf = Box::leak(Box::new(
         pageserver::config::PageServerConf::dummy_conf(temp_dir.path().to_path_buf()),
     ));
-    virtual_file::init(16384, IoEngineKind::TokioEpollUring);
+    virtual_file::init(16384, virtual_file::io_engine_for_bench());
     page_cache::init(conf.page_cache_size);
 
     {
diff --git a/pageserver/src/virtual_file.rs b/pageserver/src/virtual_file.rs
index 8de646469e..27f6fe90a4 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/virtual_file.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/virtual_file.rs
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ use tokio::time::Instant;
 pub use pageserver_api::models::virtual_file as api;
 pub(crate) mod io_engine;
 pub use io_engine::feature_test as io_engine_feature_test;
+pub use io_engine::io_engine_for_bench;
 pub use io_engine::FeatureTestResult as IoEngineFeatureTestResult;
 mod metadata;
 mod open_options;
diff --git a/pageserver/src/virtual_file/io_engine.rs b/pageserver/src/virtual_file/io_engine.rs
index 2820cea097..0ffcd9fa05 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/virtual_file/io_engine.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/virtual_file/io_engine.rs
@@ -328,3 +328,29 @@ pub fn feature_test() -> anyhow::Result<FeatureTestResult> {
     .join()
     .unwrap()
 }
+
+/// For use in benchmark binaries only.
+///
+/// Benchmarks which initialize `virtual_file` need to know what engine to use, but we also
+/// don't want to silently fall back to slower I/O engines in a benchmark: this could waste
+/// developer time trying to figure out why it's slow.
+///
+/// In practice, this method will either return IoEngineKind::TokioEpollUring, or panic.
+pub fn io_engine_for_bench() -> IoEngineKind {
+    #[cfg(not(target_os = "linux"))]
+    {
+        panic!("This benchmark does I/O and can only give a representative result on Linux");
+    }
+    #[cfg(target_os = "linux")]
+    {
+        match feature_test().unwrap() {
+            FeatureTestResult::PlatformPreferred(engine) => engine,
+            FeatureTestResult::Worse {
+                engine: _engine,
+                remark,
+            } => {
+                panic!("This benchmark does I/O can requires the preferred I/O engine: {remark}");
+            }
+        }
+    }
+}