diff --git a/[refs] b/[refs]
index eb76f3d5502d..388300a3e007 100644
--- a/[refs]
+++ b/[refs]
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
 ---
-refs/heads/master: 45f17e0c2ae05c133a348452690de0e5fa863293
+refs/heads/master: 84692195969b83f0ba57dc33ecf73e6c124dd186
diff --git a/trunk/drivers/md/md.c b/trunk/drivers/md/md.c
index b6d16022a53e..8dbab2ef3885 100644
--- a/trunk/drivers/md/md.c
+++ b/trunk/drivers/md/md.c
@@ -1597,6 +1597,19 @@ void md_update_sb(mddev_t * mddev)
 
 repeat:
 	spin_lock_irq(&mddev->write_lock);
+
+	if (mddev->degraded && mddev->sb_dirty == 3)
+		/* If the array is degraded, then skipping spares is both
+		 * dangerous and fairly pointless.
+		 * Dangerous because a device that was removed from the array
+		 * might have a event_count that still looks up-to-date,
+		 * so it can be re-added without a resync.
+		 * Pointless because if there are any spares to skip,
+		 * then a recovery will happen and soon that array won't
+		 * be degraded any more and the spare can go back to sleep then.
+		 */
+		mddev->sb_dirty = 1;
+
 	sync_req = mddev->in_sync;
 	mddev->utime = get_seconds();
 	if (mddev->sb_dirty == 3)