diff --git a/fs/ext4/mballoc.c b/fs/ext4/mballoc.c
index 38719c156573c..ba5371b35b09e 100644
--- a/fs/ext4/mballoc.c
+++ b/fs/ext4/mballoc.c
@@ -2177,6 +2177,7 @@ static int ext4_mb_good_group_nolock(struct ext4_allocation_context *ac,
 {
 	struct ext4_group_info *grp = ext4_get_group_info(ac->ac_sb, group);
 	struct super_block *sb = ac->ac_sb;
+	struct ext4_sb_info *sbi = EXT4_SB(sb);
 	bool should_lock = ac->ac_flags & EXT4_MB_STRICT_CHECK;
 	ext4_grpblk_t free;
 	int ret = 0;
@@ -2195,7 +2196,25 @@ static int ext4_mb_good_group_nolock(struct ext4_allocation_context *ac,
 
 	/* We only do this if the grp has never been initialized */
 	if (unlikely(EXT4_MB_GRP_NEED_INIT(grp))) {
-		ret = ext4_mb_init_group(ac->ac_sb, group, GFP_NOFS);
+		struct ext4_group_desc *gdp =
+			ext4_get_group_desc(sb, group, NULL);
+		int ret;
+
+		/* cr=0/1 is a very optimistic search to find large
+		 * good chunks almost for free.  If buddy data is not
+		 * ready, then this optimization makes no sense.  But
+		 * we never skip the first block group in a flex_bg,
+		 * since this gets used for metadata block allocation,
+		 * and we want to make sure we locate metadata blocks
+		 * in the first block group in the flex_bg if possible.
+		 */
+		if (cr < 2 &&
+		    (!sbi->s_log_groups_per_flex ||
+		     ((group & ((1 << sbi->s_log_groups_per_flex) - 1)) != 0)) &&
+		    !(ext4_has_group_desc_csum(sb) &&
+		      (gdp->bg_flags & cpu_to_le16(EXT4_BG_BLOCK_UNINIT))))
+			return 0;
+		ret = ext4_mb_init_group(sb, group, GFP_NOFS);
 		if (ret)
 			return ret;
 	}