diff --git a/cmd/utils/flags.go b/cmd/utils/flags.go
index 6d018d449d..d8a81ba536 100644
--- a/cmd/utils/flags.go
+++ b/cmd/utils/flags.go
@@ -282,9 +282,9 @@ var (
 		Usage: "Time interval to regenerate the trie cache journal",
 		Value: ethconfig.Defaults.TrieCleanCacheRejournal,
 	}
-	SnapshotFlag = cli.BoolFlag{
+	SnapshotFlag = cli.BoolTFlag{
 		Name:  "snapshot",
-		Usage: `Enables snapshot-database mode`,
+		Usage: `Enables snapshot-database mode (default = enable)`,
 	}
 	BloomFilterSizeFlag = cli.Uint64Flag{
 		Name:  "bloomfilter.size",
diff --git a/eth/downloader/queue.go b/eth/downloader/queue.go
index b4534377a3..784ac23c8e 100644
--- a/eth/downloader/queue.go
+++ b/eth/downloader/queue.go
@@ -40,8 +40,8 @@ const (
 )
 
 var (
-	blockCacheMaxItems     = 128               // Maximum number of blocks to cache before throttling the download
-	blockCacheInitialItems = 128               // Initial number of blocks to start fetching, before we know the sizes of the blocks
+	blockCacheMaxItems     = 1024              // Maximum number of blocks to cache before throttling the download
+	blockCacheInitialItems = 256               // Initial number of blocks to start fetching, before we know the sizes of the blocks
 	blockCacheMemory       = 256 * 1024 * 1024 // Maximum amount of memory to use for block caching
 	blockCacheSizeWeight   = 0.1               // Multiplier to approximate the average block size based on past ones
 )