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May 13th, 2017 19:00

Dell XPS 13 9350 skylake/2016 question about NVMe SSD..

hello, this is my first post on these web forums, I hope I'm posting this in the right place and also am hoping to get some answers/help !

I own the Dell XPS-13 9350, specs are as follows:

Dell XPS-13

color is silver;

16GB Ram/Internal Memory

512GB SSD NVMe THNSN5512GPUK NV

QHD+ Infinity Edge Display (with touch-screen)

Intel Core i7-6560U Processor

Intel Iris 540 Graphics

I've owned this computer since March of this year, and I am still fairly new to it and its usage. I am in the beginning of my journey into the computer/laptop world of understanding, rebuilding, and upgrading, and there are a few things I would like some help with to better understand myself about this device, and I hope someone can help me out with these questions so that I might better understand what I am not only doing, but dealing with!


now I have the 512GB SSD with this XPS 13, I have been trying to determine which SSD I have as I've read online that there are many different models and makes, and some of which work faster when it comes to read/write speeds (I'm not even sure exactly what that refers to yet, like transferring data from USB drives to and from my laptop when something's plugged in? faster load times for apps and games? idk) - but the only thing I can find through system settings and device manager are:


in device manager - under "disk drives", I've found this - THNSN5512GPUK NV. Does this indicate what brand of SSD I have? I know there is a huge debate over Samsung, Toshiba, and one other company who manufacture these SSD's and some work better at read/write speeds than others. I am trying to determine which brand I have, and if its a good one - or if I should upgrade that (something I am willing to do down the road if I find useful)

another thing is, I don't know which drivers I need to update, and for what reasons, I've tried visiting dells support website to auto-detect, but am having some fairly small issues with that, I'm afraid I may have already installed some driver updates and its still saying I can update them again, is that safe to do? I keep receiving a notification saying I need to update my intel graphics driver, when I have already upgraded that driver online, it keeps popping up like 9-10 times a day, how can I fix this and how can I determine which drivers I need to update? my battery life seems shorter then specified, I fully charge the laptop, and let it drain all the way down before I recharge, and I always unplug when fully charged, I wont let it sit plugged in over night and I always shut my laptop down when I'm done using it, still I seem to only get a portion of what I read I am supposed to get in the battery icon/indicator in the task bar (i.e.= right now I'm at a 72% charge, and it says I have 4 hours 34 minutes remaining) yet I only get a portion of that battery time when all I am doing is web surfing, and occasional(sometimes more than occasional, like the whole time I'm on YouTube but in-between I google something, but nothing else) - I keep my screen brightness relatively low, usually between 25-30% - I read somewhere online I should be getting like 7-8 hours at 75% brightness when all I'm doing is web surfing and YouTube, but it seems like I'm getting a whole *** of a lot less, maybe I'm wrong somewhere here, I'm not 100% sure but it just feels like something doesn't add up for me. I am not on the FHD 1080p version of this laptop, and I understand that the QHD+ (near 4K?) version gets less battery life, but is it supposed to be as what I've described here?

I Appreciate your time in reading this, and whomever reply's to this I really do appreciate your help and advice, thank you guys so very much in advance! looking forward to hearing back from you guys!

9 Legend

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87.5K Posts

May 14th, 2017 04:00

Your system has an OCZ/Toshiba SSD.  

The design of the NVMe connection in these uses two PCIe lanes - it will never be a barnstorming performer as a result - for maximum performance, you need four lanes - this system isn't designed that way.

For battery life, take the manufacturer quoted runtime and divide by two - anything close to that and you're doing as expected.

www.laptopmag.com/.../laptop-makers-exaggerate-battery-life

10 Posts

July 8th, 2017 17:00

@ejn62

Thanks for the response, but I do have a question for you regarding your reply//answer to my question's;

So I've been doing some digging into this topic, regarding my PCIe SSD, and what I've found out is..

The OCZ/ Toshiba SSD is an SSD of its own, and so is the Toshiba THNSN5512GPUK NVMe that I have installed into my Dell XPS 13 9350.

I haven't been able to directly link these two as being the same as each-other anywhere online in my research, although I have found that the same PCIe SSD that I have in my laptop (the THNSN5512GPUK NV) is on ebay, someone is selling them in bulk,

check it out for yourself right here ---------->

www.ebay.com/.../172769617985

Now that listing on ebay is for a " Toshiba NVMe M.2 SSD 512GB PCIe 3.0 x4 THNSN5512GPUK (2280 Size) "

Are you following me?

Now, take a look at what I also found to be available on the website ebay, this is the Toshiba OCZ SSD that you suggested I had in my Dell XPS 13 9350 (2016 w\ intel iris 540 graphics), this gentlemen or woman is also selling these in bulk,

Check it out here ---------->

www.ebay.com/.../112422155779

and the listing in this one is for a " Toshiba OCZ RD400 Series Solid State Drive PCIe NVMe M.2 512GB (2280 Size) "

Okay...

now, I have had VERY LITTLE luck researching the PCIe NVMe SSD that is supposedly inside of my laptop, all I was really able to find is it for sale on a few different websites, but I cannot for the life of me find any reviews on it, cannot find any websites to compare its performance abilities with other SSDs with the same technology, and worst of all - I cant even get an answer from DELL about this particular SSD, I mean this is not a huge deal or problem for me, but it is an issue because I am studying computers and the components/hardware that go into making them work and perform, and I have spent hours trying to find reading material on this SSD so I can better understand what it is, how it performs on paper, cant read other reviews on it, don't know what others are saying about it, and cant even ask others about it because their is no one to talk with about it that knows a *** thing about it !

haha, well anyways, thanks for your attempt at answering my question about the SSD of this laptop anyway, maybe you can find something I'm missing on this particular model eh

thank you in advanced,

Kind Regards,

-Brian

9 Legend

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87.5K Posts

July 9th, 2017 07:00

It isn't so much a "missing" drive as that it's an OEM drive - it's not built for retail sale, but rather for integration in new notebook systems.  Samsung does essentially the same thing - the models sold to OEMs have different model number designations and different specifications than do the ones sold by Samsung through retail channels.

You can benchmark the drive with Crystal Disk or a similar utility if you'd like - but unless someone posts a review of a system using the drive you have, you're pretty much out of luck.  This drive just isn't sold through enthusiast channels (which is usually where the reviews come from).

140 Posts

July 9th, 2017 16:00

Just a few observations:

For a benchmark go to this site:  http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd_lookup.php?hdd=NVMe+THNSN5512GPUK+NV&id=12819

For Firmware updates on the Dell Site use the one titled:  "Toshiba XG4 non-SED Solid State Firmware Update" last updated on 14Feb17 - it worked fine on mine.

Using the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Tool it says that my disk is running as follows:

Controller Type:  NVMe

PCIe link speed:  4000 MB/s

PCIe link width:  x4

That conflicts with the post above that says these drives only use 2 lanes and the 9350 doesn't support 4 lanes.

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