diff --git a/etcdserver/api/v3rpc/maintenance.go b/etcdserver/api/v3rpc/maintenance.go
index 076f7dad6..1d96e970a 100644
--- a/etcdserver/api/v3rpc/maintenance.go
+++ b/etcdserver/api/v3rpc/maintenance.go
@@ -117,11 +117,6 @@ func (ms *maintenanceServer) Snapshot(sr *pb.SnapshotRequest, srv pb.Maintenance
 	// used for integrity checks during snapshot restore operation
 	h := sha256.New()
 
-	// buffer just holds read bytes from stream
-	// response size is multiple of OS page size, fetched in boltdb
-	// e.g. 4*1024
-	buf := make([]byte, snapshotSendBufferSize)
-
 	sent := int64(0)
 	total := snap.Size()
 	size := humanize.Bytes(uint64(total))
@@ -132,6 +127,13 @@ func (ms *maintenanceServer) Snapshot(sr *pb.SnapshotRequest, srv pb.Maintenance
 		zap.String("size", size),
 	)
 	for total-sent > 0 {
+		// buffer just holds read bytes from stream
+		// response size is multiple of OS page size, fetched in boltdb
+		// e.g. 4*1024
+		// NOTE: srv.Send does not wait until the message is received by the client.
+		// Therefore the buffer can not be safely reused between Send operations
+		buf := make([]byte, snapshotSendBufferSize)
+
 		n, err := io.ReadFull(pr, buf)
 		if err != nil && err != io.EOF && err != io.ErrUnexpectedEOF {
 			return togRPCError(err)