diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index a91686eb18..d76364854c 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -176,7 +176,7 @@ DEFSHAREDFS_QEMU_VIRTIOFS := virtio-fs
 DEFVIRTIOFSDAEMON := $(VIRTIOFSDBINDIR)/virtiofsd
 # Default DAX mapping cache size in MiB
 DEFVIRTIOFSCACHESIZE := 1024
-DEFVIRTIOFSCACHE := always
+DEFVIRTIOFSCACHE ?= auto
 DEFVIRTIOFSEXTRAARGS := []
 DEFENABLEIOTHREADS := false
 DEFENABLEMEMPREALLOC := false