Business Notebooks

New EB 840 G5 with 256 GB Toshiba NVMe drive KXG50ZNV256G.  Specs for drive show Seq Read speed up to 2,700 MB/s and Seq Write speed up to 1,050 MB/s.  Testing with CrystalDiskMark 6.0.1 gives Seq Read very close to the 2,700 MB/s, but the Seq Write is only 345 MB/s ... significantly lower than its potential rating, and even slower than a SATA3 drive.

I've run the test several ways and this seems to be the result each time.  The computer came with the C: drive partition encrypted by BitLocker, so I thought it might have been the encryption process slowing it down.  But, the HP recovery partition, 😧 drive, an 18 GB partition with >2 GB of free space and not BitLocker encrypted reads the same read and write speeds.

EB 840 G5 has:

i7-8550U CPU

8GB DDR4-2400 RAM

Model:  3RF14UT

Update: through further investigation I found this review of an EB840G5 with the same Toshiba NVMe drive, EB840G5 Review.  They too report speeds like I am seeing.

Given the read speeds, it would appear the hardware platform is allowing for the data rate, so perhaps the drive is not living up to its write specifications?  The drive I have has the same firmware as that in the review.

Update 2: this same issue has been in Dell forums for some time.  The firmware on my drive is AAHA4102.  Dell has updated to 4104 and 4105.  I can't determine from their forums yet if the 4105 release fixed the slow write.  For fun, I downloaded their 4105 release to see if the Toshiba untility would see my drive.  It does see it, but confirms the Dell firmware update is not compatible with my drive.  (The Dell firmware is AADA4105 ... so I'm willing to guess the "D" and "H" in the fimrwares may mean Dell and HP).

Anyone else with an EB 840 G5 with either the 256 or 512 GB Toshiba KXG50ZNVxxxG drvie that could share their results?

Thanks.