diff --git a/ansible/files/pgbackrest_config/pgbackrest.conf b/ansible/files/pgbackrest_config/pgbackrest.conf
index f54336c4e8..ea136a8d3d 100644
--- a/ansible/files/pgbackrest_config/pgbackrest.conf
+++ b/ansible/files/pgbackrest_config/pgbackrest.conf
@@ -13,6 +13,8 @@ log-level-console = info
 log-level-file = detail
 log-subprocess = y
 resume = n
+# Explicit vs. the /var/spool/pgbackrest default, which sits on the 10GB AMI root volume that archive-get's replica-catch-up queue (multi-segment WAL) could fill; /data is the dedicated EBS volume.
+spool-path = /data/pgbackrest_spool
 start-fast = y
 # Note: the [supabase] stanza (pg1-path, pg1-socket-path, pg1-user) has been
 # removed from this file. supabase-admin-agent owns that stanza and writes it
diff --git a/ansible/tasks/setup-pgbackrest.yml b/ansible/tasks/setup-pgbackrest.yml
index 340fb7d963..d7c2c4558b 100644
--- a/ansible/tasks/setup-pgbackrest.yml
+++ b/ansible/tasks/setup-pgbackrest.yml
@@ -58,7 +58,8 @@
     # (running as the pgbackrest user) cannot read conf files created by adminapi.
     - {dir: /etc/pgbackrest/conf.d, mode: '02770'}
     - {dir: /var/lib/pgbackrest}
-    - {dir: /var/spool/pgbackrest}
+    # must match spool-path in ansible/files/pgbackrest_config/pgbackrest.conf
+    - {dir: /data/pgbackrest_spool}
     - {dir: /var/log/pgbackrest}
   loop_control:
     loop_var: backrest_dir