diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index 0e1ae4b9f83..ccd83217a23 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -1721,6 +1721,9 @@ Release 2.8.0 - UNRELEASED
     HDFS-9601. NNThroughputBenchmark.BlockReportStats should handle
     NotReplicatedYetException on adding block (iwasakims)
 
+    HDFS-9761. Rebalancer sleeps too long between iterations
+    (Mingliang Liu via cnauroth)
+
 Release 2.7.3 - UNRELEASED
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/balancer/Balancer.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/balancer/Balancer.java
index dcae9226400..8be62ac992e 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/balancer/Balancer.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/balancer/Balancer.java
@@ -673,14 +673,13 @@ public class Balancer {
               // must be an error statue, return.
               return r.exitStatus.getExitCode();
             }
-
-            if (!done) {
-              Thread.sleep(sleeptime);
-            }
           } else {
             LOG.info("Skipping blockpool " + nnc.getBlockpoolID());
           }
         }
+        if (!done) {
+          Thread.sleep(sleeptime);
+        }
       }
     } finally {
       for(NameNodeConnector nnc : connectors) {