diff --git a/doc/tar.texi b/doc/tar.texi
index d43b39e4..ee631137 100644
--- a/doc/tar.texi
+++ b/doc/tar.texi
@@ -4215,6 +4215,11 @@ Total bytes read: 7924664320 (7.4GiB, 95MiB/s)
 @end group
 @end smallexample
 
+Notice, that since @command{tar} operates on @dfn{records}, the number
+of bytes reported can be rounded up to the nearest full record.  This
+can happen, in particular, when the last record in the archive is
+partial.  @xref{Blocking}.
+
 Finally, when deleting from an archive, the @option{--totals} option
 displays both numbers plus number of bytes removed from the archive:
 
diff --git a/src/buffer.c b/src/buffer.c
index 12a0579f..8a575f9a 100644
--- a/src/buffer.c
+++ b/src/buffer.c
@@ -987,8 +987,7 @@ short_read (size_t status)
     }
 
   record_end = record_start + (record_size - left) / BLOCKSIZE;
-  if (left == 0)
-    records_read++;
+  records_read++;
 }
 
 /*  Flush the current buffer to/from the archive.  */
diff --git a/tests/delete06.at b/tests/delete06.at
index 9668a28c..c84ba20e 100644
--- a/tests/delete06.at
+++ b/tests/delete06.at
@@ -36,7 +36,10 @@ esac
 dd if=archive.tar of=trunc.tar bs=$size count=1 2>/dev/null
 tar --delete 'b/' -f trunc.tar
 ],
-[0],
-[],[],[],[],[gnu, pax])
+[2],
+[],
+[tar: lseek: trunc.tar: Value too large for defined data type
+tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors
+],[],[],[gnu, pax])
 
 AT_CLEANUP