diff --git a/fs/sync.c b/fs/sync.c
index 131ddae87a1d..eb8722dc556f 100644
--- a/fs/sync.c
+++ b/fs/sync.c
@@ -73,12 +73,6 @@ static void sync_inodes_one_sb(struct super_block *sb, void *arg)
 		sync_inodes_sb(sb);
 }
 
-static void writeback_inodes_one_sb(struct super_block *sb, void *arg)
-{
-	if (!(sb->s_flags & MS_RDONLY))
-		writeback_inodes_sb(sb, WB_REASON_SYNC);
-}
-
 static void sync_fs_one_sb(struct super_block *sb, void *arg)
 {
 	if (!(sb->s_flags & MS_RDONLY) && sb->s_op->sync_fs)
@@ -96,17 +90,22 @@ static void fdatawait_one_bdev(struct block_device *bdev, void *arg)
 }
 
 /*
- * sync everything.  Start out by waking pdflush, because that writes back
- * all queues in parallel.
+ * Sync everything. We start by waking flusher threads so that most of
+ * writeback runs on all devices in parallel. Then we sync all inodes reliably
+ * which effectively also waits for all flusher threads to finish doing
+ * writeback. At this point all data is on disk so metadata should be stable
+ * and we tell filesystems to sync their metadata via ->sync_fs() calls.
+ * Finally, we writeout all block devices because some filesystems (e.g. ext2)
+ * just write metadata (such as inodes or bitmaps) to block device page cache
+ * and do not sync it on their own in ->sync_fs().
  */
 SYSCALL_DEFINE0(sync)
 {
 	int nowait = 0, wait = 1;
 
 	wakeup_flusher_threads(0, WB_REASON_SYNC);
-	iterate_supers(writeback_inodes_one_sb, NULL);
-	iterate_supers(sync_fs_one_sb, &nowait);
 	iterate_supers(sync_inodes_one_sb, NULL);
+	iterate_supers(sync_fs_one_sb, &nowait);
 	iterate_supers(sync_fs_one_sb, &wait);
 	iterate_bdevs(fdatawrite_one_bdev, NULL);
 	iterate_bdevs(fdatawait_one_bdev, NULL);