The comment to this function says:

"""
  * Stupid algorithm --- we now just search forward starting from the
  * goal.  Should put in a smarter one someday....
"""

This adds in a rather hacky algorthim which starts where we finished
searching previously using a static variable rather than starting 
from scratch if a hint isn't provided.

This was after noticing that mkfs.ext4 -F X -d Y was spending *lots*
of time in ext2fs_new_block2 called from ext2fs_bmap from ext2fs_file_write().

Numbers wise, this took a core-image-sato-sdk mkfs time from over 
8 minutes to around 35 seconds.

Upstream-Status: Pending

RP 2015/02/20

Index: e2fsprogs-1.42.9/lib/ext2fs/alloc.c
===================================================================
--- e2fsprogs-1.42.9.orig/lib/ext2fs/alloc.c
+++ e2fsprogs-1.42.9/lib/ext2fs/alloc.c
@@ -160,6 +160,8 @@ errcode_t ext2fs_new_inode(ext2_filsys f
 	return 0;
 }
 
+static blk64_t last_goal = 0;
+
 /*
  * Stupid algorithm --- we now just search forward starting from the
  * goal.  Should put in a smarter one someday....
@@ -170,6 +172,9 @@ errcode_t ext2fs_new_block2(ext2_filsys
 	blk64_t	i;
 	int	c_ratio;
 
+        if (!goal)
+            goal = last_goal;
+
 	EXT2_CHECK_MAGIC(fs, EXT2_ET_MAGIC_EXT2FS_FILSYS);
 
 	if (!map)
@@ -194,6 +199,7 @@ errcode_t ext2fs_new_block2(ext2_filsys
 
 		if (!ext2fs_fast_test_block_bitmap2(map, i)) {
 			*ret = i;
+			last_goal = i;
 			return 0;
 		}
 		i = (i + c_ratio) & ~(c_ratio - 1);