diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index b5b0ab6..efe25fc 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 ## storr 1.2.2 (2018-??-??)
 
 * Speed up the `$get_hash()` method of RDS drivers using C code and traits (#96, #98, @wlandau).
+* Speed up the `$clear()` method of RDS drivers using `unlink(recursive = TRUE)` rather than deleting keys one by one from R. For RDS drivers and `storr`s, the return value of `$clear()` is now `integer(0)` instead of the number of deleted keys (#121, @wlandau).
 
 ## storr 1.2.1 (2018-10-18)
 
diff --git a/R/driver_rds.R b/R/driver_rds.R
index 5a30f59..eead78e 100644
--- a/R/driver_rds.R
+++ b/R/driver_rds.R
@@ -295,6 +295,15 @@ R6_driver_rds <- R6::R6Class(
         key <- encode64(key, pad = self$mangle_key_pad)
       }
       file.path(self$path, "keys", namespace, key)
+    },
+    
+    clear = function(namespace) {
+      if (is.null(namespace)) {
+        lapply(self$list_namespaces(), self$clear)
+      } else {
+        unlink(file.path(self$path, "keys", namespace), recursive = TRUE)
+      }
+      invisible(integer(0))
     }
   ))
 
diff --git a/R/storr.R b/R/storr.R
index 96a5416..d0b43a0 100644
--- a/R/storr.R
+++ b/R/storr.R
@@ -201,6 +201,9 @@ R6_storr <- R6::R6Class(
     },
 
     clear = function(namespace = self$default_namespace) {
+      if (is.function(self$driver$clear)) {
+        return(invisible(self$driver$clear(namespace = namespace)))
+      }
       if (is.null(namespace)) {
         invisible(sum(viapply(self$list_namespaces(), self$clear)))
       } else {
diff --git a/inst/spec/test-storr.R b/inst/spec/test-storr.R
index 3c9f87f..371b18f 100644
--- a/inst/spec/test-storr.R
+++ b/inst/spec/test-storr.R
@@ -150,19 +150,23 @@ testthat::test_that("clear", {
   st$set("b1", 1, namespace = "b")
 
   testthat::expect_equal(sort(st$list("a")), sort(c("a1", "a2")))
-  testthat::expect_equal(st$clear("a"), 2L)
+  st$clear("a")
   testthat::expect_equal(st$list("a"), character(0))
 
   testthat::expect_equal(st$list("b"), "b1")
-  testthat::expect_equal(st$clear(NULL), 1L)
+  st$clear(NULL)
   testthat::expect_equal(st$list("b"), character(0))
 
   st$set("a1", 1, namespace = "a")
   st$set("a2", 2, namespace = "a")
   st$set("b1", 1, namespace = "b")
-  testthat::expect_equal(st$clear(NULL), 3L)
-  testthat::expect_equal(st$clear(NULL), 0L)
-  testthat::expect_equal(st$clear("no_such_namespace"), 0L)
+  testthat::expect_equal(sort(st$list("a")), sort(c("a1", "a2")))
+  testthat::expect_equal(st$list("b"), "b1")
+  st$clear(NULL)
+  testthat::expect_equal(st$list("a"), character(0))
+  testthat::expect_equal(st$list("b"), character(0))
+  testthat::expect_silent(tmp <- st$clear(NULL))
+  testthat::expect_silent(tmp <- st$clear("no_such_namespace"))
 })