diff --git a/repo/config/datastore.go b/repo/config/datastore.go
index aec78e0e1..2b2bcb518 100644
--- a/repo/config/datastore.go
+++ b/repo/config/datastore.go
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 package config
 
+import (
+	"encoding/json"
+)
+
 // DefaultDataStoreDirectory is the directory to store all the local IPFS data.
 const DefaultDataStoreDirectory = "datastore"
 
@@ -8,8 +12,12 @@ type Datastore struct {
 	StorageMax         string // in B, kB, kiB, MB, ...
 	StorageGCWatermark int64  // in percentage to multiply on StorageMax
 	GCPeriod           string // in ns, us, ms, s, m, h
-	Path               string
-	NoSync             bool // deprecated
+
+	// deprecated fields, use Spec
+	Type   string           `json:",omitempty"`
+	Path   string           `json:",omitempty"`
+	NoSync bool             `json:",omitempty"`
+	Params *json.RawMessage `json:",omitempty"`
 
 	Spec map[string]interface{}
 
@@ -17,27 +25,6 @@ type Datastore struct {
 	BloomFilterSize int
 }
 
-type S3Datastore struct {
-	Region string `json:"region"`
-	Bucket string `json:"bucket"`
-	ACL    string `json:"acl"`
-}
-
-type FlatDS struct {
-	Path      string
-	ShardFunc string
-	Sync      bool
-}
-
-type LevelDB struct {
-	Path        string
-	Compression string
-}
-
-type SbsDS struct {
-	Path string
-}
-
 // DataStorePath returns the default data store path given a configuration root
 // (set an empty string to have the default configuration root)
 func DataStorePath(configroot string) (string, error) {
diff --git a/repo/config/init.go b/repo/config/init.go
index ae41b68e9..1ab42f6ff 100644
--- a/repo/config/init.go
+++ b/repo/config/init.go
@@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ func datastoreConfig() (*Datastore, error) {
 					"child": map[string]interface{}{
 						"type":      "flatfs",
 						"path":      "blocks",
-						"nosync":    false,
+						"sync":      true,
 						"shardFunc": "/repo/flatfs/shard/v1/next-to-last/2",
 					},
 				},
diff --git a/repo/fsrepo/datastores.go b/repo/fsrepo/datastores.go
index 95fa04503..5fbd2237e 100644
--- a/repo/fsrepo/datastores.go
+++ b/repo/fsrepo/datastores.go
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ func (r *FSRepo) openFlatfsDatastore(params map[string]interface{}) (repo.Datast
 		return nil, err
 	}
 
-	return flatfs.CreateOrOpen(p, shardFun, params["nosync"].(bool))
+	return flatfs.CreateOrOpen(p, shardFun, params["sync"].(bool))
 }
 
 func (r *FSRepo) openLeveldbDatastore(params map[string]interface{}) (repo.Datastore, error) {