diff --git a/test/common.js b/test/common.js
index 308411a13d3427..aacea9ae768fc7 100644
--- a/test/common.js
+++ b/test/common.js
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ exports.isLinuxPPCBE = (process.platform === 'linux') &&
 exports.isSunOS = process.platform === 'sunos';
 exports.isFreeBSD = process.platform === 'freebsd';
 
-exports.enoughTestMem = os.totalmem() > 0x20000000; /* 512MB */
+exports.enoughTestMem = os.totalmem() > 0x40000000; /* 1 Gb */
 exports.rootDir = exports.isWindows ? 'c:\\' : '/';
 
 function rimrafSync(p) {
diff --git a/test/parallel/test-fs-readfile-tostring-fail.js b/test/parallel/test-fs-readfile-tostring-fail.js
index c61fa2c712714e..8ed9658a25889a 100644
--- a/test/parallel/test-fs-readfile-tostring-fail.js
+++ b/test/parallel/test-fs-readfile-tostring-fail.js
@@ -1,6 +1,13 @@
 'use strict';
 
 const common = require('../common');
+
+if (!common.enoughTestMem) {
+  const skipMessage = 'intensive toString tests due to memory confinements';
+  common.skip(skipMessage);
+  return;
+}
+
 const assert = require('assert');
 const fs = require('fs');
 const path = require('path');