diff --git a/src/bin/pg_basebackup/pg_basebackup.c b/src/bin/pg_basebackup/pg_basebackup.c
index faa69d14ceb..c1d3d8624bf 100644
--- a/src/bin/pg_basebackup/pg_basebackup.c
+++ b/src/bin/pg_basebackup/pg_basebackup.c
@@ -1207,7 +1207,12 @@ ReceiveTarFile(PGconn *conn, PGresult *res, int rownum)
 							time(NULL));
 
 			writeTarData(&state, header, sizeof(header));
-			writeTarData(&state, zerobuf, 511);
+
+			/*
+			 * we don't need to pad out to a multiple of the tar block size
+			 * here, because the file is zero length, which is a multiple of
+			 * any block size.
+			 */
 		}
 	}