diff --git a/client/driver/qemu.go b/client/driver/qemu.go
index d8407306e..66fc05425 100644
--- a/client/driver/qemu.go
+++ b/client/driver/qemu.go
@@ -81,6 +81,12 @@ func (d *QemuDriver) Start(ctx *ExecContext, task *structs.Task) (DriverHandle,
 		return nil, fmt.Errorf("Missing source image Qemu driver")
 	}
 
+	// Qemu defaults to 128M of RAM for a given VM. Instead, we force users to
+	// supply a memory size in the tasks resources
+	if task.Resources == nil || task.Resources.MemoryMB == 0 {
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("Missing required Task Resource: Memory")
+	}
+
 	// Attempt to download the thing
 	// Should be extracted to some kind of Http Fetcher
 	// Right now, assume publicly accessible HTTP url
diff --git a/client/driver/qemu_test.go b/client/driver/qemu_test.go
index 7d2cb69fd..c60b3e2dc 100644
--- a/client/driver/qemu_test.go
+++ b/client/driver/qemu_test.go
@@ -53,7 +53,6 @@ func TestQemuDriver_Start(t *testing.T) {
 	task := &structs.Task{
 		Config: map[string]string{
 			"image_source": "https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47675/jar_thing/linux-0.2.img",
-			"memory":       "512M",
 			"accelerator":  "tcg",
 			"host_port":    "8080",
 			"guest_port":   "8081",
@@ -61,6 +60,12 @@ func TestQemuDriver_Start(t *testing.T) {
 			// ssh u/p would be here
 		},
 	}
+
+	// add requred memory resource
+	task.Resources = &structs.Resources{
+		MemoryMB: 512,
+	}
+
 	handle, err := d.Start(ctx, task)
 	if err != nil {
 		t.Fatalf("err: %v", err)
@@ -83,3 +88,27 @@ func TestQemuDriver_Start(t *testing.T) {
 		fmt.Printf("\nError killing Qemu test: %s", err)
 	}
 }
+
+func TestQemuDriver_RequiresMemory(t *testing.T) {
+	ctx := NewExecContext()
+	ctx.AllocDir = os.TempDir()
+	d := NewQemuDriver(testLogger())
+
+	// TODO: use test server to load from a fixture
+	task := &structs.Task{
+		Config: map[string]string{
+			"image_source": "https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47675/jar_thing/linux-0.2.img",
+			"accelerator":  "tcg",
+			"host_port":    "8080",
+			"guest_port":   "8081",
+			"checksum":     "a5e836985934c3392cbbd9b26db55a7d35a8d7ae1deb7ca559dd9c0159572544",
+			// ssh u/p would be here
+		},
+	}
+
+	_, err := d.Start(ctx, task)
+	if err == nil {
+		t.Fatalf("Expected error when not specifying memory")
+	}
+
+}