diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index a47f4d2a09..32f0c95de8 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -2258,6 +2258,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "proptest",
  "pulldown-cmark",
  "rand 0.9.1",
+ "rayon",
  "regex",
  "remove_dir_all",
  "reqwest",
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index b187a7d2a0..0f1d612f43 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -69,6 +69,7 @@ opentelemetry_sdk = { version = "0.30", features = ["rt-tokio"], optional = true
 platforms = "3.4"
 pulldown-cmark = { version = "0.13", default-features = false }
 rand = "0.9"
+rayon = "1.10.0"
 regex = "1"
 remove_dir_all = { version = "1.0.0", features = ["parallel"] }
 reqwest = { version = "0.12", default-features = false, features = ["blocking", "gzip", "http2", "socks", "stream"], optional = true }
diff --git a/src/diskio/mod.rs b/src/diskio/mod.rs
index 94f3dc61ec..e0e02a79aa 100644
--- a/src/diskio/mod.rs
+++ b/src/diskio/mod.rs
@@ -60,13 +60,13 @@ use std::io::{self, Write};
 use std::ops::{Deref, DerefMut};
 use std::path::{Path, PathBuf};
 use std::sync::mpsc::Receiver;
-use std::thread::available_parallelism;
 use std::time::{Duration, Instant};
 use std::{fmt::Debug, fs::OpenOptions};
 
 use anyhow::{Context, Result};
 
 use crate::process::Process;
+use crate::utils;
 use crate::utils::notifications::Notification;
 use threaded::PoolReference;
 
@@ -448,15 +448,9 @@ pub(crate) fn get_executor<'a>(
     ram_budget: usize,
     process: &Process,
 ) -> Result<Box<dyn Executor + 'a>> {
-    // Don't spawn more than this many I/O threads unless the user tells us to.
-    const DEFAULT_THREAD_LIMIT: usize = 8;
-
     // If this gets lots of use, consider exposing via the config file.
     let thread_count = match process.var("RUSTUP_IO_THREADS") {
-        Err(_) => available_parallelism()
-            .map(|p| p.get())
-            .unwrap_or(1)
-            .min(DEFAULT_THREAD_LIMIT),
+        Err(_) => utils::io_thread_count(),
         Ok(n) => n
             .parse::<usize>()
             .context("invalid value in RUSTUP_IO_THREADS. Must be a natural number")?,
diff --git a/src/install.rs b/src/install.rs
index c95461ab0b..9b37d25a53 100644
--- a/src/install.rs
+++ b/src/install.rs
@@ -39,6 +39,11 @@ impl InstallMethod<'_> {
     // Install a toolchain
     #[tracing::instrument(level = "trace", err(level = "trace"), skip_all)]
     pub(crate) async fn install(&self) -> Result<UpdateStatus> {
+        // Initialize rayon for use by the remove_dir_all crate limiting the number of threads.
+        // This will error if rayon is already initialized but it's fine to ignore that.
+        let _ = rayon::ThreadPoolBuilder::new()
+            .num_threads(utils::io_thread_count())
+            .build_global();
         let nh = &self.cfg().notify_handler;
         match self {
             InstallMethod::Copy { .. }
diff --git a/src/utils/mod.rs b/src/utils/mod.rs
index de0b60df6a..a3639cc978 100644
--- a/src/utils/mod.rs
+++ b/src/utils/mod.rs
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ use std::io::{self, BufReader, Write};
 use std::ops::{BitAnd, BitAndAssign};
 use std::path::{Path, PathBuf};
 use std::process::ExitStatus;
+use std::thread;
 
 use anyhow::{Context, Result, anyhow, bail};
 use retry::delay::{Fibonacci, jitter};
@@ -26,6 +27,16 @@ pub(crate) mod notify;
 pub mod raw;
 pub(crate) mod units;
 
+pub fn io_thread_count() -> usize {
+    // Don't spawn more than this many I/O threads unless the user tells us to.
+    // Feel free to increase this value if it improves performance.
+    const DEFAULT_IO_THREAD_LIMIT: usize = 8;
+
+    thread::available_parallelism()
+        .map_or(1, |p| p.get())
+        .min(DEFAULT_IO_THREAD_LIMIT)
+}
+
 #[must_use]
 #[derive(Debug, PartialEq, Eq)]
 pub struct ExitCode(pub i32);