diff --git a/lib/redis/connection/ruby.rb b/lib/redis/connection/ruby.rb
index f2fbc2c05..68c7e84ef 100644
--- a/lib/redis/connection/ruby.rb
+++ b/lib/redis/connection/ruby.rb
@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@ def _read_from_socket(nbytes)
       end
 
       def _write_to_socket(data)
+        data = data.b
         total_bytes_written = 0
         loop do
           case bytes_written = write_nonblock(data, exception: false)
@@ -95,7 +96,6 @@ def _write_to_socket(data)
       def write(data)
         return super(data) unless @write_timeout
 
-        data = data.b
         length = data.bytesize
         total_count = 0
         loop do
diff --git a/test/internals_test.rb b/test/internals_test.rb
index e19b56690..82ad78ef6 100644
--- a/test/internals_test.rb
+++ b/test/internals_test.rb
@@ -12,6 +12,16 @@ def test_logger
     assert log.string =~ /\[Redis\] call_time=\d+\.\d+ ms/
   end
 
+  def test_large_payload
+    # see: https://github.com/redis/redis-rb/issues/962
+    # large payloads will trigger write_nonblock to write a portion
+    # of the payload in connection/ruby.rb _write_to_socket
+    large = "\u3042" * 4_000_000
+    r.setex("foo", 10, large)
+    result = r.get("foo")
+    assert_equal result, large
+  end
+
   def test_logger_with_pipelining
     r.pipelined do
       r.set "foo", "bar"