diff --git a/hadoop-hdds/framework/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdds/utils/db/RDBTable.java b/hadoop-hdds/framework/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdds/utils/db/RDBTable.java
index eb181bf0a022..2e390e2362d1 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdds/framework/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdds/utils/db/RDBTable.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdds/framework/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdds/utils/db/RDBTable.java
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
 import org.apache.hadoop.hdds.StringUtils;
 
 import org.rocksdb.ColumnFamilyHandle;
+import org.rocksdb.Holder;
 import org.rocksdb.ReadOptions;
 import org.rocksdb.RocksDB;
 import org.rocksdb.RocksDBException;
@@ -128,11 +129,12 @@ public boolean isExist(byte[] key) throws IOException {
       // If the key definitely does not exist in the database, then this
       // method returns false, else true.
       rdbMetrics.incNumDBKeyMayExistChecks();
-      StringBuilder outValue = new StringBuilder();
+      Holder<byte[]> outValue = new Holder<>();
       boolean keyMayExist = db.keyMayExist(handle, key, outValue);
       if (keyMayExist) {
-        boolean keyExists = (outValue.length() > 0) ||
-            (db.get(handle, key) != null);
+        boolean keyExists =
+            (outValue.getValue() != null && outValue.getValue().length > 0) ||
+                (db.get(handle, key) != null);
         if (!keyExists) {
           rdbMetrics.incNumDBKeyMayExistMisses();
         }
@@ -162,8 +164,7 @@ public byte[] getIfExist(byte[] key) throws IOException {
       // If the key definitely does not exist in the database, then this
       // method returns false, else true.
       rdbMetrics.incNumDBKeyGetIfExistChecks();
-      StringBuilder outValue = new StringBuilder();
-      boolean keyMayExist = db.keyMayExist(handle, key, outValue);
+      boolean keyMayExist = db.keyMayExist(handle, key, null);
       if (keyMayExist) {
         // Not using out value from string builder, as that is causing
         // IllegalArgumentException during protobuf parsing.
diff --git a/hadoop-hdds/framework/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdds/utils/db/TestRDBStore.java b/hadoop-hdds/framework/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdds/utils/db/TestRDBStore.java
index d640c4a97ac8..600c48f3e8a9 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdds/framework/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdds/utils/db/TestRDBStore.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdds/framework/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdds/utils/db/TestRDBStore.java
@@ -315,7 +315,7 @@ public void testRocksDBKeyMayExistApi() throws Exception {
       for (int i = 0; i < 50; i++) {
         Assert.assertFalse(db.keyMayExist(
             org.apache.commons.codec.binary.StringUtils
-                .getBytesUtf16("key" + i), new StringBuilder()));
+                .getBytesUtf16("key" + i), null));
       }
       end = System.nanoTime();
       long keyMayExistLatency = end - start;
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index a676996ddf8a..766342662f30 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -1586,7 +1586,7 @@ xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xs
       <dependency>
         <groupId>org.rocksdb</groupId>
         <artifactId>rocksdbjni</artifactId>
-        <version>6.6.4</version>
+        <version>6.8.1</version>
       </dependency>
       <dependency>
         <groupId>org.xerial</groupId>