diff --git a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store.go b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store.go
index 210b67084c4..708018cd49b 100644
--- a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store.go
+++ b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store.go
@@ -264,11 +264,13 @@ func (s *store) GuaranteedUpdate(
 	key = path.Join(s.pathPrefix, key)
 
 	var origState *objState
+	var mustCheckData bool
 	if len(suggestion) == 1 && suggestion[0] != nil {
 		origState, err = s.getStateFromObject(suggestion[0])
 		if err != nil {
 			return err
 		}
+		mustCheckData = true
 	} else {
 		getResp, err := s.client.KV.Get(ctx, key, s.getOps...)
 		if err != nil {
@@ -297,6 +299,21 @@ func (s *store) GuaranteedUpdate(
 			return err
 		}
 		if !origState.stale && bytes.Equal(data, origState.data) {
+			// if we skipped the original Get in this loop, we must refresh from
+			// etcd in order to be sure the data in the store is equivalent to
+			// our desired serialization
+			if mustCheckData {
+				getResp, err := s.client.KV.Get(ctx, key, s.getOps...)
+				if err != nil {
+					return err
+				}
+				origState, err = s.getState(getResp, key, v, ignoreNotFound)
+				if err != nil {
+					return err
+				}
+				mustCheckData = false
+				continue
+			}
 			return decode(s.codec, s.versioner, origState.data, out, origState.rev)
 		}
 
@@ -330,6 +347,7 @@ func (s *store) GuaranteedUpdate(
 				return err
 			}
 			trace.Step("Retry value restored")
+			mustCheckData = false
 			continue
 		}
 		putResp := txnResp.Responses[0].GetResponsePut()
diff --git a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store_test.go b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store_test.go
index cc1d76c7789..ed9c3bf3c86 100644
--- a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store_test.go
+++ b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store_test.go
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ import (
 	"bytes"
 	"fmt"
 	"reflect"
+	"strconv"
 	"sync"
 	"testing"
 
@@ -459,6 +460,41 @@ func TestGuaranteedUpdateWithTTL(t *testing.T) {
 	testCheckEventType(t, watch.Deleted, w)
 }
 
+func TestGuaranteedUpdateChecksStoredData(t *testing.T) {
+	ctx, store, cluster := testSetup(t)
+	defer cluster.Terminate(t)
+
+	input := &example.Pod{ObjectMeta: metav1.ObjectMeta{Name: "foo"}}
+	key := "/somekey"
+
+	// serialize input into etcd with data that would be normalized by a write - in this case, leading
+	// and trailing whitespace
+	codec := codecs.LegacyCodec(examplev1.SchemeGroupVersion)
+	data, err := runtime.Encode(codec, input)
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+	resp, err := store.client.Put(ctx, key, "test! "+string(data)+" ")
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+
+	// this update should write the canonical value to etcd because the new serialization differs
+	// from the stored serialization
+	input.ResourceVersion = strconv.FormatInt(resp.Header.Revision, 10)
+	out := &example.Pod{}
+	err = store.GuaranteedUpdate(ctx, key, out, true, nil,
+		func(_ runtime.Object, _ storage.ResponseMeta) (runtime.Object, *uint64, error) {
+			return input, nil, nil
+		}, input)
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("Update failed: %v", err)
+	}
+	if out.ResourceVersion == strconv.FormatInt(resp.Header.Revision, 10) {
+		t.Errorf("guaranteed update should have updated the serialized data, got %#v", out)
+	}
+}
+
 func TestGuaranteedUpdateWithConflict(t *testing.T) {
 	ctx, store, cluster := testSetup(t)
 	defer cluster.Terminate(t)
@@ -569,10 +605,10 @@ func TestTransformationFailure(t *testing.T) {
 	}); !storage.IsInternalError(err) {
 		t.Errorf("Unexpected error: %v", err)
 	}
-	// GuaranteedUpdate with suggestion should not return an error if we don't change the object
+	// GuaranteedUpdate with suggestion should return an error if we don't change the object
 	if err := store.GuaranteedUpdate(ctx, preset[1].key, &example.Pod{}, false, nil, func(input runtime.Object, res storage.ResponseMeta) (output runtime.Object, ttl *uint64, err error) {
 		return input, nil, nil
-	}, preset[1].obj); err != nil {
+	}, preset[1].obj); err == nil {
 		t.Errorf("Unexpected error: %v", err)
 	}