diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index b0d814ec..a3bd9325 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -21,6 +21,8 @@
 * [CHANGE] Removed `CortexQuerierCapacityFull` alert. #342
 * [CHANGE] Changes blocks storage alerts to group metrics by the configured `cluster_labels` (supporting the deprecated `alert_aggregation_labels`). #351
 * [CHANGE] Increased `CortexIngesterReachingSeriesLimit` critical alert threshold from 80% to 85%. #363
+* [CHANGE] Decreased `-server.grpc-max-concurrent-streams` from 100k to 10k. #369
+* [CHANGE] Decreased blocks storage ingesters graceful termination period from 80m to 20m. #369
 * [ENHANCEMENT] cortex-mixin: Make `cluster_namespace_deployment:kube_pod_container_resource_requests_{cpu_cores,memory_bytes}:sum` backwards compatible with `kube-state-metrics` v2.0.0. #317
 * [ENHANCEMENT] Cortex-mixin: Include `cortex-gw-internal` naming variation in default `gateway` job names. #328
 * [ENHANCEMENT] Ruler dashboard: added object storage metrics. #354
@@ -38,11 +40,13 @@
   * "Tenant Configuration Sync" row - information about the configuration sync procedure.
   * "Sharding Initial State Sync" row - information about the initial state sync procedure when sharding is enabled.
   * "Sharding Runtime State Sync" row - information about various state operations which occur when sharding is enabled (replication, fetch, marge, persist).
+* [ENHANCEMENT] Added 256MB memory ballast to querier. #369
 * [BUGFIX] Fixed `CortexIngesterHasNotShippedBlocks` alert false positive in case an ingester instance had ingested samples in the past, then no traffic was received for a long period and then it started receiving samples again. #308
 * [BUGFIX] Alertmanager: fixed `--alertmanager.cluster.peers` CLI flag passed to alertmanager when HA is enabled. #329
 * [BUGFIX] Fixed `CortexInconsistentRuntimeConfig` metric. #335
 * [BUGFIX] Fixed scaling dashboard to correctly work when a Cortex service deployment spans across multiple zones (a zone is expected to have the `zone-[a-z]` suffix). #365
 * [BUGFIX] Fixed rollout progress dashboard to correctly work when a Cortex service deployment spans across multiple zones (a zone is expected to have the `zone-[a-z]` suffix). #366
+* [BUGFIX] Fixed `-distributor.extend-writes` setting on ruler when `unregister_ingesters_on_shutdown` is disabled. #369
 
 ## 1.9.0 / 2021-05-18
 
diff --git a/cortex/ingester.libsonnet b/cortex/ingester.libsonnet
index 34b4d987..e0753d84 100644
--- a/cortex/ingester.libsonnet
+++ b/cortex/ingester.libsonnet
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@
       'ingester.max-series-per-query': $._config.limits.max_series_per_query,
       'ingester.max-samples-per-query': $._config.limits.max_samples_per_query,
       'runtime-config.file': '/etc/cortex/overrides.yaml',
-      'server.grpc-max-concurrent-streams': 100000,
+      'server.grpc-max-concurrent-streams': 10000,
       'server.grpc-max-send-msg-size-bytes': 10 * 1024 * 1024,
       'server.grpc-max-recv-msg-size-bytes': 10 * 1024 * 1024,
     } + (
diff --git a/cortex/querier.libsonnet b/cortex/querier.libsonnet
index 5dc3c834..574358d8 100644
--- a/cortex/querier.libsonnet
+++ b/cortex/querier.libsonnet
@@ -26,6 +26,10 @@
 
       'querier.second-store-engine': $._config.querier_second_storage_engine,
 
+      // We request high memory but the Go heap is typically very low (< 100MB) and this causes
+      // the GC to trigger continuously. Setting a ballast of 256MB reduces GC.
+      'mem-ballast-size-bytes': 1 << 28,  // 256M
+
       'log.level': 'debug',
     },
 
diff --git a/cortex/ruler.libsonnet b/cortex/ruler.libsonnet
index 73029a20..dfb5727e 100644
--- a/cortex/ruler.libsonnet
+++ b/cortex/ruler.libsonnet
@@ -29,6 +29,10 @@
 
       // Storage
       'querier.second-store-engine': $._config.querier_second_storage_engine,
+
+      // Do not extend the replication set on unhealthy (or LEAVING) ingester when "unregister on shutdown"
+      // is set to false.
+      'distributor.extend-writes': $._config.unregister_ingesters_on_shutdown,
     },
 
   ruler_container::
diff --git a/cortex/tsdb.libsonnet b/cortex/tsdb.libsonnet
index 5c69bf00..1c77abd9 100644
--- a/cortex/tsdb.libsonnet
+++ b/cortex/tsdb.libsonnet
@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@
     statefulSet.mixin.spec.template.spec.securityContext.withRunAsUser(0) +
     // When the ingester needs to flush blocks to the storage, it may take quite a lot of time.
     // For this reason, we grant an high termination period (80 minutes).
-    statefulSet.mixin.spec.template.spec.withTerminationGracePeriodSeconds(4800) +
+    statefulSet.mixin.spec.template.spec.withTerminationGracePeriodSeconds(1200) +
     statefulSet.mixin.spec.updateStrategy.withType('RollingUpdate') +
     $.util.configVolumeMount($._config.overrides_configmap, '/etc/cortex') +
     $.util.podPriority('high') +