diff --git a/Documentation/config/core.txt b/Documentation/config/core.txt
index 8f6d8e7754..58153413c5 100644
--- a/Documentation/config/core.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config/core.txt
@@ -685,6 +685,12 @@ relatively high IO latencies.  When enabled, Git will do the
 index comparison to the filesystem data in parallel, allowing
 overlapping IO's.  Defaults to true.
 
+core.fscache::
+	Enable additional caching of file system data for some operations.
++
+Git for Windows uses this to bulk-read and cache lstat data of entire
+directories (instead of doing lstat file by file).
+
 core.unsetenvvars::
 	Windows-only: comma-separated list of environment variables'
 	names that need to be unset before spawning any other process.
diff --git a/builtin/commit.c b/builtin/commit.c
index 71d674138c..1b9e3b6d17 100644
--- a/builtin/commit.c
+++ b/builtin/commit.c
@@ -1580,6 +1580,7 @@ struct repository *repo UNUSED)
 		       PATHSPEC_PREFER_FULL,
 		       prefix, argv);
 
+	enable_fscache(1);
 	if (status_format != STATUS_FORMAT_PORCELAIN &&
 	    status_format != STATUS_FORMAT_PORCELAIN_V2)
 		progress_flag = REFRESH_PROGRESS;
diff --git a/compat/mingw.c b/compat/mingw.c
index 2631cd39a9..e1567d1e0c 100644
--- a/compat/mingw.c
+++ b/compat/mingw.c
@@ -245,6 +245,7 @@ enum hide_dotfiles_type {
 static int core_restrict_inherited_handles = -1;
 static enum hide_dotfiles_type hide_dotfiles = HIDE_DOTFILES_DOTGITONLY;
 static char *unset_environment_variables;
+int core_fscache;
 
 int mingw_core_config(const char *var, const char *value,
 		      const struct config_context *ctx UNUSED,
@@ -258,6 +259,11 @@ int mingw_core_config(const char *var, const char *value,
 		return 0;
 	}
 
+	if (!strcmp(var, "core.fscache")) {
+		core_fscache = git_config_bool(var, value);
+		return 0;
+	}
+
 	if (!strcmp(var, "core.unsetenvvars")) {
 		if (!value)
 			return config_error_nonbool(var);
diff --git a/compat/mingw.h b/compat/mingw.h
index 8c86693fdb..d8852df7bb 100644
--- a/compat/mingw.h
+++ b/compat/mingw.h
@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ typedef _sigset_t sigset_t;
 #undef _POSIX_THREAD_SAFE_FUNCTIONS
 #endif
 
+extern int core_fscache;
+
 struct config_context;
 int mingw_core_config(const char *var, const char *value,
 		      const struct config_context *ctx, void *cb);
diff --git a/git-compat-util.h b/git-compat-util.h
index 6884519ffa..e43d2d56e0 100644
--- a/git-compat-util.h
+++ b/git-compat-util.h
@@ -1545,6 +1545,21 @@ static inline int is_missing_file_error(int errno_)
 	return (errno_ == ENOENT || errno_ == ENOTDIR);
 }
 
+/*
+ * Enable/disable a read-only cache for file system data on platforms that
+ * support it.
+ *
+ * Implementing a live-cache is complicated and requires special platform
+ * support (inotify, ReadDirectoryChangesW...). enable_fscache shall be used
+ * to mark sections of git code that extensively read from the file system
+ * without modifying anything. Implementations can use this to cache e.g. stat
+ * data or even file content without the need to synchronize with the file
+ * system.
+ */
+#ifndef enable_fscache
+#define enable_fscache(x) /* noop */
+#endif
+
 int cmd_main(int, const char **);
 
 /*
diff --git a/preload-index.c b/preload-index.c
index 7926eb09a6..a3b9f07fa6 100644
--- a/preload-index.c
+++ b/preload-index.c
@@ -135,6 +135,7 @@ void preload_index(struct index_state *index,
 		pthread_mutex_init(&pd.mutex, NULL);
 	}
 
+	enable_fscache(1);
 	for (i = 0; i < threads; i++) {
 		struct thread_data *p = data+i;
 		int err;
@@ -170,6 +171,8 @@ void preload_index(struct index_state *index,
 
 	trace2_data_intmax("index", NULL, "preload/sum_lstat", t2_sum_lstat);
 	trace2_region_leave("index", "preload", NULL);
+
+	enable_fscache(0);
 }
 
 int repo_read_index_preload(struct repository *repo,