diff --git a/HISTORY.md b/HISTORY.md
index 6b74d3ef4926dc52355d02ac7a77d772cebd6dbc..fc259b92b1ffb5b6b10408c65f90b90007c85620 100644
--- a/HISTORY.md
+++ b/HISTORY.md
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@
 
 ### Public API Changes
 * Completely removed the following deprecated/obsolete statistics: the tickers `BLOCK_CACHE_INDEX_BYTES_EVICT`, `BLOCK_CACHE_FILTER_BYTES_EVICT`, `BLOOM_FILTER_MICROS`, `NO_FILE_CLOSES`, `STALL_L0_SLOWDOWN_MICROS`, `STALL_MEMTABLE_COMPACTION_MICROS`, `STALL_L0_NUM_FILES_MICROS`, `RATE_LIMIT_DELAY_MILLIS`, `NO_ITERATORS`, `NUMBER_FILTERED_DELETES`, `WRITE_TIMEDOUT`, `BLOB_DB_GC_NUM_KEYS_OVERWRITTEN`, `BLOB_DB_GC_NUM_KEYS_EXPIRED`, `BLOB_DB_GC_BYTES_OVERWRITTEN`, `BLOB_DB_GC_BYTES_EXPIRED`, `BLOCK_CACHE_COMPRESSION_DICT_BYTES_EVICT` as well as the histograms `STALL_L0_SLOWDOWN_COUNT`, `STALL_MEMTABLE_COMPACTION_COUNT`, `STALL_L0_NUM_FILES_COUNT`, `HARD_RATE_LIMIT_DELAY_COUNT`, `SOFT_RATE_LIMIT_DELAY_COUNT`, `BLOB_DB_GC_MICROS`, and `NUM_DATA_BLOCKS_READ_PER_LEVEL`. Note that as a result, the C++ enum values of the still supported statistics have changed. Developers are advised to not rely on the actual numeric values.
+* Deprecated IngestExternalFileOptions::write_global_seqno and change default to false. This option only needs to be set to true to generate a DB compatible with RocksDB versions before 5.16.0.
 
 ## 7.10.0 (01/23/2023)
 ### Behavior changes
diff --git a/db/external_sst_file_basic_test.cc b/db/external_sst_file_basic_test.cc
index d6f3d355a4ccfd85e5e6c400dd5cd48ca64e361d..7fc5bc260c214ab3a03a65b82d871ad1142443fa 100644
--- a/db/external_sst_file_basic_test.cc
+++ b/db/external_sst_file_basic_test.cc
@@ -1182,6 +1182,7 @@ TEST_F(ExternalSSTFileBasicTest, SyncFailure) {
     ASSERT_OK(sst_file_writer->Finish());
 
     IngestExternalFileOptions ingest_opt;
+    ASSERT_FALSE(ingest_opt.write_global_seqno);  // new default
     if (i == 0) {
       ingest_opt.move_files = true;
     }
diff --git a/include/rocksdb/options.h b/include/rocksdb/options.h
index 78e26de559b6d8763fee35ec295d7d7bc8150e87..eca34108a5b28eb06b44bcdaeb74211124ff0154 100644
--- a/include/rocksdb/options.h
+++ b/include/rocksdb/options.h
@@ -1923,7 +1923,8 @@ struct IngestExternalFileOptions {
   bool snapshot_consistency = true;
   // If set to false, IngestExternalFile() will fail if the file key range
   // overlaps with existing keys or tombstones or output of ongoing compaction
-  // during file ingestion in the DB.
+  // during file ingestion in the DB (the conditions under which a global_seqno
+  // must be assigned to the ingested file).
   bool allow_global_seqno = true;
   // If set to false and the file key range overlaps with the memtable key range
   // (memtable flush required), IngestExternalFile will fail.
@@ -1936,18 +1937,14 @@ struct IngestExternalFileOptions {
   // with allow_ingest_behind=true since the dawn of time.
   // All files will be ingested at the bottommost level with seqno=0.
   bool ingest_behind = false;
-  // Set to true if you would like to write global_seqno to a given offset in
-  // the external SST file for backward compatibility. Older versions of
-  // RocksDB writes a global_seqno to a given offset within ingested SST files,
-  // and new versions of RocksDB do not. If you ingest an external SST using
-  // new version of RocksDB and would like to be able to downgrade to an
-  // older version of RocksDB, you should set 'write_global_seqno' to true. If
-  // your service is just starting to use the new RocksDB, we recommend that
-  // you set this option to false, which brings two benefits:
-  // 1. No extra random write for global_seqno during ingestion.
-  // 2. Without writing external SST file, it's possible to do checksum.
-  // We have a plan to set this option to false by default in the future.
-  bool write_global_seqno = true;
+  // DEPRECATED - Set to true if you would like to write global_seqno to
+  // the external SST file on ingestion for backward compatibility before
+  // RocksDB 5.16.0. Such old versions of RocksDB expect any global_seqno to
+  // be written to the SST file rather than recorded in the DB manifest.
+  // This functionality was deprecated because (a) random writes might be
+  // costly or unsupported on some FileSystems, and (b) the file checksum
+  // changes with such a write.
+  bool write_global_seqno = false;
   // Set to true if you would like to verify the checksums of each block of the
   // external SST file before ingestion.
   // Warning: setting this to true causes slowdown in file ingestion because
diff --git a/java/src/test/java/org/rocksdb/IngestExternalFileOptionsTest.java b/java/src/test/java/org/rocksdb/IngestExternalFileOptionsTest.java
index ab7e21568204151f1bbd310d726e7a6ec0efebac..2306946152d3bb536aa5d06b35df9aa07a394909 100644
--- a/java/src/test/java/org/rocksdb/IngestExternalFileOptionsTest.java
+++ b/java/src/test/java/org/rocksdb/IngestExternalFileOptionsTest.java
@@ -99,9 +99,9 @@ public class IngestExternalFileOptionsTest {
   public void writeGlobalSeqno() {
     try (final IngestExternalFileOptions options =
              new IngestExternalFileOptions()) {
-      assertThat(options.writeGlobalSeqno()).isTrue();
-      options.setWriteGlobalSeqno(false);
       assertThat(options.writeGlobalSeqno()).isFalse();
+      options.setWriteGlobalSeqno(true);
+      assertThat(options.writeGlobalSeqno()).isTrue();
     }
   }
 }