diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index 4d58be45e1..8714d15787 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -666,6 +666,9 @@ Release 2.5.0 - UNRELEASED
     HDFS-6257. TestCacheDirectives#testExceedsCapacity fails occasionally
     (cmccabe)
 
+    HDFS-6364. Incorrect check for unknown datanode in Balancer. (Benoy
+    Antony via Arpit Agarwal)
+
 Release 2.4.1 - 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 8061b05356..a9369010e1 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
@@ -696,7 +696,7 @@ private long getBlockList() throws IOException {
             // update locations
             for (String datanodeUuid : blk.getDatanodeUuids()) {
               final BalancerDatanode d = datanodeMap.get(datanodeUuid);
-              if (datanode != null) { // not an unknown datanode
+              if (d != null) { // not an unknown datanode
                 block.addLocation(d);
               }
             }