diff --git a/exec.c b/exec.c
index a19ed21bff..f471e7377a 100644
--- a/exec.c
+++ b/exec.c
@@ -1229,6 +1229,15 @@ void qemu_mutex_unlock_ramlist(void)
 }
 
 #ifdef __linux__
+static int64_t get_file_size(int fd)
+{
+    int64_t size = lseek(fd, 0, SEEK_END);
+    if (size < 0) {
+        return -errno;
+    }
+    return size;
+}
+
 static void *file_ram_alloc(RAMBlock *block,
                             ram_addr_t memory,
                             const char *path,
@@ -1240,6 +1249,7 @@ static void *file_ram_alloc(RAMBlock *block,
     char *c;
     void *area = MAP_FAILED;
     int fd = -1;
+    int64_t file_size;
 
     if (kvm_enabled() && !kvm_has_sync_mmu()) {
         error_setg(errp,
@@ -1302,6 +1312,8 @@ static void *file_ram_alloc(RAMBlock *block,
     }
 #endif
 
+    file_size = get_file_size(fd);
+
     if (memory < block->page_size) {
         error_setg(errp, "memory size 0x" RAM_ADDR_FMT " must be equal to "
                    "or larger than page size 0x%zx",
@@ -1316,8 +1328,16 @@ static void *file_ram_alloc(RAMBlock *block,
      * hosts, so don't bother bailing out on errors.
      * If anything goes wrong with it under other filesystems,
      * mmap will fail.
+     *
+     * Do not truncate the non-empty backend file to avoid corrupting
+     * the existing data in the file. Disabling shrinking is not
+     * enough. For example, the current vNVDIMM implementation stores
+     * the guest NVDIMM labels at the end of the backend file. If the
+     * backend file is later extended, QEMU will not be able to find
+     * those labels. Therefore, extending the non-empty backend file
+     * is disabled as well.
      */
-    if (ftruncate(fd, memory)) {
+    if (!file_size && ftruncate(fd, memory)) {
         perror("ftruncate");
     }