ext3 filesystem sync mount speedup:

Again, we don't need to sync indirects as we dirty them because
we run a commit if IS_SYNC(inode) prior to returning to the
caller of write(2).

Writing a 10 meg file in 0.1 meg chunks is sped up by, err,
a factor of fifty.  That's a best case.

fs/ext3/inode.c

@@ -584,8 +584,6 @@ static int ext3_alloc_branch(handle_t *handle, struct inode *inode,
 			
 			parent = nr;
 		}
-		if (IS_SYNC(inode))
-			handle->h_sync = 1;
 	}
 	if (n == num)
 		return 0;