diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index 2a71e2096b2..f7d49588407 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -679,6 +679,9 @@ Release 2.1.0-beta - 2013-07-02
     HDFS-4980. Incorrect logging.properties file for hadoop-httpfs.
     (Mark Grover via suresh)
 
+    HDFS-5003. TestNNThroughputBenchmark failed caused by existing directories.
+    (Xi Fang via cnauroth)
+
   BREAKDOWN OF HDFS-347 SUBTASKS AND RELATED JIRAS
 
     HDFS-4353. Encapsulate connections to peers in Peer and PeerServer classes.
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NNThroughputBenchmark.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NNThroughputBenchmark.java
index 8059287ffbb..77f8560816f 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NNThroughputBenchmark.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NNThroughputBenchmark.java
@@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ public class NNThroughputBenchmark {
     File excludeFile = new File(config.get(DFSConfigKeys.DFS_HOSTS_EXCLUDE,
       "exclude"));
     if(!excludeFile.exists()) {
-      if(!excludeFile.getParentFile().mkdirs())
+      if(!excludeFile.getParentFile().exists() && !excludeFile.getParentFile().mkdirs())
         throw new IOException("NNThroughputBenchmark: cannot mkdir " + excludeFile);
     }
     new FileOutputStream(excludeFile).close();