diff --git a/hw/core/numa.c b/hw/core/numa.c
index cb5fdbcb1e..dd5c6e2334 100644
--- a/hw/core/numa.c
+++ b/hw/core/numa.c
@@ -479,8 +479,10 @@ static void allocate_system_memory_nonnuma(MemoryRegion *mr, Object *owner,
             if (mem_prealloc) {
                 exit(1);
             }
-            error_report("falling back to regular RAM allocation.");
-
+            warn_report("falling back to regular RAM allocation");
+            error_printf("This is deprecated. Make sure that -mem-path "
+                         " specified path has sufficient resources to allocate"
+                         " -m specified RAM amount");
             /* Legacy behavior: if allocation failed, fall back to
              * regular RAM allocation.
              */
diff --git a/qemu-deprecated.texi b/qemu-deprecated.texi
index 4a626f535d..e6891c3a93 100644
--- a/qemu-deprecated.texi
+++ b/qemu-deprecated.texi
@@ -112,6 +112,15 @@ QEMU using implicit generic or board specific splitting rule.
 Use @option{memdev} with @var{memory-backend-ram} backend or @option{mem} (if
 it's supported by used machine type) to define mapping explictly instead.
 
+@subsection -mem-path fallback to RAM (since 4.1)
+Currently if guest RAM allocation from file pointed by @option{mem-path}
+fails, QEMU falls back to allocating from RAM, which might result
+in unpredictable behavior since the backing file specified by the user
+is ignored. In the future, users will be responsible for making sure
+the backing storage specified with @option{-mem-path} can actually provide
+the guest RAM configured with @option{-m} and QEMU will fail to start up if
+RAM allocation is unsuccessful.
+
 @section QEMU Machine Protocol (QMP) commands
 
 @subsection block-dirty-bitmap-add "autoload" parameter (since 2.12.0)