diff --git a/redis.conf b/redis.conf
index 00a2f9193..fe259726e 100644
--- a/redis.conf
+++ b/redis.conf
@@ -563,6 +563,51 @@ lua-time-limit 5000
 #
 # cluster-node-timeout 15000
 
+# A slave of a failing master will avoid to start a failover if its data
+# looks too old.
+#
+# There is no simple way for a slave to actually have a exact measure of
+# its "data age", so the following two checks are performed:
+#
+# 1) If there are multiple slaves able to failover, they exchange messages
+#    in order to try to give an advantage to the slave with the best
+#    replication offset (more data from the master processed).
+#    Slaves will try to get their rank by offset, and apply to the start
+#    of the failover a delay proportional to their rank.
+#
+# 2) Every single slave computes the time of the last interaction with
+#    its master. This can be the last ping or command received (if the master
+#    is still in the "connected" state), or the time that elapsed since the
+#    disconnection with the master (if the replication link is currently down).
+#    If the last interaction is too old, the slave will not try to failover
+#    at all.
+#
+# The point "2" can be tuned by user. Specifically a slave will not perform
+# the failover if, since the last interaction with the master, the time
+# elapsed is greater than:
+#
+#   (node-timeout * slave-validity-factor) + repl-ping-slave-period
+#
+# So for example if node-timeout is 30 seconds, and the slave-validity-factor
+# is 10, and assuming a default repl-ping-slave-period of 10 seconds, the
+# slave will not try to failover if it was not able to talk with the master
+# for longer than 310 seconds.
+#
+# A large slave-validity-factor may allow slaves with too old data to failover
+# a master, while a too small value may prevent the cluster from being able to
+# elect a slave at all.
+#
+# For maximum availability, it is possible to set the slave-validity-factor
+# to a value of 0, which means, that slaves will always try to failover the
+# master regardless of the last time they interacted with the master.
+# (However they'll always try to apply a delay proportional to their
+# offset rank).
+#
+# Zero is the only value able to guarantee that when all the partitions heal
+# the cluster will always be able to continue.
+#
+# cluster-slave-validity-factor 10
+
 # Cluster slaves are able to migrate to orphaned masters, that are masters
 # that are left without working slaves. This improves the cluster ability
 # to resist to failures as otherwise an orphaned master can't be failed over
diff --git a/src/cluster.c b/src/cluster.c
index 59193680c..638189dec 100644
--- a/src/cluster.c
+++ b/src/cluster.c
@@ -2410,14 +2410,14 @@ void clusterHandleSlaveFailover(void) {
     if (data_age > server.cluster_node_timeout)
         data_age -= server.cluster_node_timeout;
 
-    /* Check if our data is recent enough. For now we just use a fixed
-     * constant of ten times the node timeout since the cluster should
-     * react much faster to a master down.
+    /* Check if our data is recent enough according to the slave validity
+     * factor configured by the user.
      *
      * Check bypassed for manual failovers. */
-    if (data_age >
-        ((mstime_t)server.repl_ping_slave_period * 1000) +
-        (server.cluster_node_timeout * REDIS_CLUSTER_SLAVE_VALIDITY_MULT))
+    if (server.cluster_slave_validity_factor &&
+        data_age >
+        (((mstime_t)server.repl_ping_slave_period * 1000) +
+         (server.cluster_node_timeout * server.cluster_slave_validity_factor)))
     {
         if (!manual_failover) return;
     }
diff --git a/src/cluster.h b/src/cluster.h
index 2d6960574..96072cd91 100644
--- a/src/cluster.h
+++ b/src/cluster.h
@@ -14,10 +14,10 @@
 /* The following defines are amunt of time, sometimes expressed as
  * multiplicators of the node timeout value (when ending with MULT). */
 #define REDIS_CLUSTER_DEFAULT_NODE_TIMEOUT 15000
+#define REDIS_CLUSTER_DEFAULT_SLAVE_VALIDITY 10 /* Slave max data age factor. */
 #define REDIS_CLUSTER_FAIL_REPORT_VALIDITY_MULT 2 /* Fail report validity. */
 #define REDIS_CLUSTER_FAIL_UNDO_TIME_MULT 2 /* Undo fail if master is back. */
 #define REDIS_CLUSTER_FAIL_UNDO_TIME_ADD 10 /* Some additional time. */
-#define REDIS_CLUSTER_SLAVE_VALIDITY_MULT 10 /* Slave data validity. */
 #define REDIS_CLUSTER_FAILOVER_DELAY 5 /* Seconds */
 #define REDIS_CLUSTER_DEFAULT_MIGRATION_BARRIER 1
 #define REDIS_CLUSTER_MF_TIMEOUT 5000 /* Milliseconds to do a manual failover. */
diff --git a/src/config.c b/src/config.c
index 25068cb9f..f11120da4 100644
--- a/src/config.c
+++ b/src/config.c
@@ -434,7 +434,15 @@ void loadServerConfigFromString(char *config) {
         {
             server.cluster_migration_barrier = atoi(argv[1]);
             if (server.cluster_migration_barrier < 0) {
-                err = "cluster migration barrier must be positive";
+                err = "cluster migration barrier must zero or positive";
+                goto loaderr;
+            }
+        } else if (!strcasecmp(argv[0],"cluster-slave-validity-factor")
+                   && argc == 2)
+        {
+            server.cluster_slave_validity_factor = atoi(argv[1]);
+            if (server.cluster_slave_validity_factor < 0) {
+                err = "cluster slave validity factor must be zero or positive";
                 goto loaderr;
             }
         } else if (!strcasecmp(argv[0],"lua-time-limit") && argc == 2) {
@@ -897,6 +905,10 @@ void configSetCommand(redisClient *c) {
         if (getLongLongFromObject(o,&ll) == REDIS_ERR ||
             ll < 0) goto badfmt;
         server.cluster_migration_barrier = ll;
+    } else if (!strcasecmp(c->argv[2]->ptr,"cluster-slave-validity-factor")) {
+        if (getLongLongFromObject(o,&ll) == REDIS_ERR ||
+            ll < 0) goto badfmt;
+        server.cluster_slave_validity_factor = ll;
     } else {
         addReplyErrorFormat(c,"Unsupported CONFIG parameter: %s",
             (char*)c->argv[2]->ptr);
@@ -1001,6 +1013,7 @@ void configGetCommand(redisClient *c) {
     config_get_numerical_field("hz",server.hz);
     config_get_numerical_field("cluster-node-timeout",server.cluster_node_timeout);
     config_get_numerical_field("cluster-migration-barrier",server.cluster_migration_barrier);
+    config_get_numerical_field("cluster-slave-validity-factor",server.cluster_slave_validity_factor);
 
     /* Bool (yes/no) values */
     config_get_bool_field("no-appendfsync-on-rewrite",
@@ -1770,6 +1783,7 @@ int rewriteConfig(char *path) {
     rewriteConfigStringOption(state,"cluster-config-file",server.cluster_configfile,REDIS_DEFAULT_CLUSTER_CONFIG_FILE);
     rewriteConfigNumericalOption(state,"cluster-node-timeout",server.cluster_node_timeout,REDIS_CLUSTER_DEFAULT_NODE_TIMEOUT);
     rewriteConfigNumericalOption(state,"cluster-migration-barrier",server.cluster_migration_barrier,REDIS_CLUSTER_DEFAULT_MIGRATION_BARRIER);
+    rewriteConfigNumericalOption(state,"cluster-slave-validity-factor",server.cluster_slave_validity_factor,REDIS_CLUSTER_DEFAULT_SLAVE_VALIDITY);
     rewriteConfigNumericalOption(state,"slowlog-log-slower-than",server.slowlog_log_slower_than,REDIS_SLOWLOG_LOG_SLOWER_THAN);
     rewriteConfigNumericalOption(state,"slowlog-max-len",server.slowlog_max_len,REDIS_SLOWLOG_MAX_LEN);
     rewriteConfigNotifykeyspaceeventsOption(state);
diff --git a/src/redis.c b/src/redis.c
index 5afb24dde..7ffaea023 100644
--- a/src/redis.c
+++ b/src/redis.c
@@ -1434,6 +1434,7 @@ void initServerConfig() {
     server.cluster_enabled = 0;
     server.cluster_node_timeout = REDIS_CLUSTER_DEFAULT_NODE_TIMEOUT;
     server.cluster_migration_barrier = REDIS_CLUSTER_DEFAULT_MIGRATION_BARRIER;
+    server.cluster_slave_validity_factor = REDIS_CLUSTER_DEFAULT_SLAVE_VALIDITY;
     server.cluster_configfile = zstrdup(REDIS_DEFAULT_CLUSTER_CONFIG_FILE);
     server.lua_caller = NULL;
     server.lua_time_limit = REDIS_LUA_TIME_LIMIT;
diff --git a/src/redis.h b/src/redis.h
index e6b7ea93b..aede36b0b 100644
--- a/src/redis.h
+++ b/src/redis.h
@@ -827,6 +827,7 @@ struct redisServer {
     char *cluster_configfile; /* Cluster auto-generated config file name. */
     struct clusterState *cluster;  /* State of the cluster */
     int cluster_migration_barrier; /* Cluster replicas migration barrier. */
+    int cluster_slave_validity_factor; /* Slave max data age for failover. */
     /* Scripting */
     lua_State *lua; /* The Lua interpreter. We use just one for all clients */
     redisClient *lua_client;   /* The "fake client" to query Redis from Lua */