diff --git a/x-pack/plugins/reporting/server/lib/content_stream.ts b/x-pack/plugins/reporting/server/lib/content_stream.ts
index a48a377b4aed..0aaf3a166bf4 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugins/reporting/server/lib/content_stream.ts
+++ b/x-pack/plugins/reporting/server/lib/content_stream.ts
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ export class ContentStream extends Duplex {
   }
 
   private buffers: Buffer[] = [];
-  private currentByteLength = 0;
+  private bytesBuffered = 0;
 
   private bytesRead = 0;
   private chunksRead = 0;
@@ -251,20 +251,37 @@ export class ContentStream extends Duplex {
     });
   }
 
-  private async flush(size = this.currentByteLength) {
-    const buffersToConsume: Buffer[] = [];
+  private async flush(size = this.bytesBuffered) {
+    const buffersToFlush: Buffer[] = [];
     let totalBytesConsumed = 0;
 
+    /*
+     Loop over each buffer, keeping track of how many bytes we have added
+     to the array of buffers to be flushed. The array of buffers to be flushed
+     contains buffers by reference, not copies. This avoids putting pressure on
+     the CPU for copying buffers or for gc activity. Please profile performance
+     with a large byte configuration and a large number of records (900k+)
+     before changing this code. Config used at time of writing:
+
+      xpack.reporting:
+        csv.maxSizeBytes: 500000000
+        csv.scroll.size: 1000
+
+     At the moment this can put memory pressure on Kibana. Up to 1,1 GB a dev
+     build. It is not recommended to have overly large max size bytes but we
+     need this code to be as performant as possible.
+    */
     for (const buffer of this.buffers) {
       if (totalBytesConsumed + buffer.byteLength <= size) {
-        buffersToConsume.push(buffer);
+        buffersToFlush.push(buffer);
         totalBytesConsumed += buffer.byteLength;
       } else {
         break;
       }
     }
 
-    const chunk = Buffer.concat(buffersToConsume);
+    // We call Buffer.concat with the fewest number of buffers
+    const chunk = Buffer.concat(buffersToFlush);
     const content = this.encode(chunk);
 
     if (!this.chunksWritten) {
@@ -280,21 +297,21 @@ export class ContentStream extends Duplex {
 
     this.bytesWritten += chunk.byteLength;
 
-    this.buffers = this.buffers.slice(buffersToConsume.length - 1);
-    this.currentByteLength -= totalBytesConsumed;
+    this.buffers = this.buffers.slice(buffersToFlush.length - 1);
+    this.bytesBuffered -= totalBytesConsumed;
   }
 
   private async flushAllFullChunks() {
     const maxChunkSize = await this.getMaxChunkSize();
 
-    while (this.currentByteLength >= maxChunkSize) {
+    while (this.bytesBuffered >= maxChunkSize) {
       await this.flush(maxChunkSize);
     }
   }
 
   _write(chunk: Buffer | string, encoding: BufferEncoding, callback: Callback) {
     const buffer = Buffer.isBuffer(chunk) ? chunk : Buffer.from(chunk, encoding);
-    this.currentByteLength += buffer.byteLength;
+    this.bytesBuffered += buffer.byteLength;
     this.buffers.push(buffer);
 
     this.flushAllFullChunks()