diff --git a/lib/database/filedown.js b/lib/database/filedown.js
index 637d7e0f35..5c7f195a11 100644
--- a/lib/database/filedown.js
+++ b/lib/database/filedown.js
@@ -9,6 +9,19 @@ util.inherits(FileDown, AbstractLevelDOWN);
 
 function FileDown(location) {
   this.location = location;
+  const tmpDir = path.join(location, "_tmp");
+  try {
+    // Fixes https://github.com/trufflesuite/ganache/issues/1617
+    fs.mkdirSync(tmpDir, { recursive: true, mode: 0o1777 });
+  } catch (e) {
+    // `recursive` doesn't throw if the file exists, but `recursive` doesn't
+    // exist in Node 8, so we catch the EEXISTS error in that case and ignore it.
+    // once we drop node 8 suport we can remove this try/catch
+    if (e.code !== "EEXIST") {
+      throw e;
+    }
+  }
+  this.tmpOptions = { keep: true, dir: tmpDir };
   AbstractLevelDOWN.call(this, location);
 }
 
@@ -79,7 +92,7 @@ FileDown.prototype._put = function(key, value, options, callback) {
   // leveldb implementation that doesn't use a separate file for every key Soon(TM).
   accessQueue.execute(lKey, () => {
     // get a tmp file to write the contents to...
-    tmp.file({ keep: true }, (err, path, fd, cleanupTmpFile) => {
+    tmp.file(this.tmpOptions, (err, path, fd, cleanupTmpFile) => {
       if (err) {
         callback(err);
         accessQueue.next(lKey);