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Klevv's CRAS C910 is a Gen 4 SSD aimed at the mainstream market. It combines decent performance at a competitive price point, landing at under $100 for the 2TB model we are reviewing today. UK availability is more scarce, but is this drive one to consider?
The CRAS C910 model range consists of four capacities: 500GB, 1TB, 2TB (the drive we are reviewing here), and a flagship 4TB model. The drive uses Essencore-branded 3D TLC NAND, which is looked after by a Realtek RTS5772DL, a PCIe 4 x4 eight-channel controller with a rated interface speed of up to 1600MT/s.
Klevv rates the C910 Sequential read performance as up to 5,000MB/s for the 500GB and 1TB drives and up to 5,200MB/s for the 2TB and 4TB models. Sequential writes are quoted as up to 3,700MB/s for the 500GB drive and up to 4,800MB/s for the other three models.
Random 4K read performance is rated as up to 545,000 IOPS for the 500GB drive, 620,000 IOPS (the fastest of the range) for the 1TB drive, up to 560,000 IOPS for the 2TB drive and 540,000 IOPS for the 4TB drive. When it comes to random writes, the 1TB and 2TB drives are the fastest at up to 615,000 IOPS, next up is the 4TB drive at up to 600,000 IOPS and the 500GB drive gets 510,000 IOPS.
The endurance for the 2TB drive is rated as 1,400 TBW.
Physical Specifications:
- Usable Capacities: 2TB.
- NAND Components: Essencore 3D TLC NAND.
- NAND Controller: Realtek RTS5772DL.
- Cache: none, HMB technology.
- Interface: PCIe Gen 4 x4, NVMe 1.4.
- Form Factor: M.2, 2280.
- Dimensions: 80 x 22 x 3.4mm (with heatshield).
- Drive Weight: 10g (with heatshield).
Firmware Version: VF001C4E.
The Klevv CRAS C910 ships in a compact box with a clear image of the drive in the centre. Above this image, in the top right-hand corner, is a sticker holding the drive's capacity (2TB) and maximum Sequential read speed (5,200MB/s). Under this, we find an icon for the attachable heatsink. Below the drive's image is a row of five icons for 3D NAND, NVMe 1.4, SLC Caching, Backup software, and limited warranty.
The rear of the box has a detailed feature list, under which is a multilingual statement about transmission speed, stable performance, and the drive's capabilities. Under this is a performance table for all three drives in the range displaying Sequential read/write speeds.
Inside the box is a plastic tray which holds and protects the CRAS C910 and the stick-on full-width stick-on aluminium heatsink.
The 2TB CRAS C910 is built on a single-sided M.2 2280 format.
Our review 2TB CRAS C910 sample uses a controller we've not come across before from a company that's pretty much known for having a controller for practically everything else besides NVMe SSDs – Realtek (but some examples have been seen using the more familiar InnoGrit IG5220 chip).
Realtek's RTS5772DL is a PCIe 4 x4 eight-channel, NVMe 1.4 controller designed for the mainstream market segment. A DRAM-less design, it supports interface speeds of up to 1600MT/s meaning Sequential performance of up to 6GB/s for both reads and writes, so it's not going to any win speed awards.
For the 2TB CRAS C910 Klevv has matched the controller with two packages of Essencore branded 3D TLC NAND (ENFFGP8NC9LR-HL) but we couldn't find any information about these particular chips.
For testing, the drives are all wiped and reset to factory settings by HDDerase V4. We try to use free or easily available programs and some real world testing so you can compare our findings against your own system. This is a good way to measure potential upgrade benefits.
Main system:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, 16GB DDR4-2400, Sapphire R9 390 Nitro and an Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master motherboard
Other drives
Corsair MP600 GS 2TB
Corsair MP600 PRO 2TB
Corsair MP600 PRO XT 2TB
Corsair MP600 Elite Heatsink 2TB
Crucial P310 2280 2TB
Crucial T500 2TB
Gigabyte AORUS 7000e 2TB
HP FX900 Pro 2TB
Kingston Fury Renegade Heatsink 2TB
Kingston KC3000 2TB
Kioxia Exceria Plus 2TB
Kioxia Exceria Plus G3 2TB
Kioxia Exceria Pro 2TB
Klevv CRAS C925 2TB
Lexar NM790 4TB
Lexar NM790 with Heatsink 4TB
Lexar Professional NM800PRO Heatsink 2TB
MSI Spatium M480 2TB
Netac NV7000-t 2TB
Patriot Viper VP4300 2TB
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB
Samsung SSD990 PRO 2TB
Samsung SSD990 EVO Plus 2TB
Solidigm P41 Plus 2TB
Seagate Lightsaber Collection Special Edition FireCuda 2TB
Seagate FireCuda 530 2TBWD Black SN850X Heatsink 2TB
WD_Black SN770M 2TB
Software:
Atto Disk Benchmark 4.
CrystalMark 8.0.0.
AS SSD 2.0.
IOMeter.
UL Solutions PC Mark 10.
UL Solutions 3DMark Storage Benchmark.
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Official Benchmark.
All our results were achieved by running each test five times with every configuration this ensures that any glitches are removed from the results. Trim is confirmed as running by typing fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify into the command line. A response of disabledeletenotify =0 confirms TRIM is active.
CrystalDiskMark is a useful benchmark to measure the theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSDs. We are using v8.0.
The CRAS C910 read score of 74.48MB/s in CrystalDiskMark 8's 4K QD1 test sees it in the bottom half of the results chart although its write result of 205.81MB/s is the slowest we've seen for a Gen4 SSD to date.
A glance at the benchmark result screens shows that using the default test we could confirm both official Sequential figures (5,200MB/s reads, 4,800MB/s writes) with test results of 5,262MB/s for reads and 5,048MB/s for writes.
Those Sequential test results see the drive in the bottom half of the results chart but it is the fastest sub 7,000MB/s drive we've seen to date.
Peak Performance profile.
The drive is officially rated at up to 560,000 IOPS for random reads and up to 615,000 IOPS for random writes. Using the Peak Performance profile of CrystalDiskMark8 we could confirm the official read figure and indeed better it a little at 620,934 IOPS. However, the random write figure was a little short of the maximum at 612,186 IOPS.
As with the default test, we could confirm both the official maximums (5,200MB/s reads, 4,800MB/s writes) for Sequential performance with test results of 5,260 MB/s for reads and 5,051MB/s for writes.
Real World profile.
In the Real World profiles test the drive's Sequential read result of 3,171MB/s sees it in last place on the results table but its write performance is much stronger at 4,976MB/s.
The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage system performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.
We are using version 4.1 for our NVMe disk tests.
With the ATTO benchmark results the drive fell short of both of the official maximums with a read figure of 5.200MB/s with a test result of 4,660 MB/s but the write performance at 4,690MB/s was closer to the official 4,800MB/s.
AS SSD is a great free tool designed just for benching Solid State Drives. It performs an array of sequential read-and-write tests, as well as random read-and-write tests with sequential access times over a portion of the drive. It uses incompressible data samples which many drives struggle with, so results can be viewed as the worst-case scenarios.
AS SSD includes a sub suite of benchmarks with various file pattern algorithms but this is difficult in trying to judge accurate performance figures.
The 2TB CRAS C910 read score of 2209 sees the drive slot into the third from last spot on the results chart.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8‘s custom settings to test the Sequential read and write performance of the drive through a range of queue depths. The setup for the tests is listed below.
128KB Sequential Read / Write.
Transfer Request Size: 128KB, Thread(s): 1, Outstanding I/O: 1-32.
With our 128KB Sequential tests, we came up just short of the maximum figures in the read test with a test result of 5,023MB/s some 177MB/s short of the official maximum. On the other hand, the write test result of 5,029MB/s was 229MB/s faster than the official figure,
128KB Sequential Read performance compared.
Compared to its competitors, the 2TB version of the CRAD C910 performs best at QD1 where it sits five places off of the bottom of the results table. At QD2 it's dropped to the penultimate place and sits at the bottom of the table at QD4. However, at QD32 it stages a small recovery to move off the bottom of the table.
128KB Sequential Write performance compared.
The poorest performance in the Sequential write tests comes at QD1 where the drive sits just above Solidigm's P41 Plus that props up the table. At QD2 the drive moves up a few places and stays there for the rest of the test run displaying consistency if nothing else.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8‘s custom settings to test the 4K random read performance of the drive through a range of queue depths. The setup for the tests is listed below.
Transfer Request Size: 4KB, Outstanding I/O: 1-32.
Officially the 2TB CRAS C910 is rated as up to 560,000 IOPS for 4K random reads. With our four-threaded tests, we couldn't get close to the official figure with a peak test result of 374,735 IOPS (1,534.91MB/s) at QD16.
4K Random Read v QD performance compared.
At QDs 1,2 and 4 the CRAS C910 sits in a mid-table position but by the time it gets to QD32, it has dropped into the bottom half of the results table.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8‘s custom settings to test the 4K random write performance of the drive through a range of queue depths. The setup for the tests is listed below.
Transfer Request Size: 4KB, Outstanding I/O: 1-32.
Klevv rates the 4K random write performance of the 2TB CRAS C910 as up to 615,000 IOPS. With our four threaded tests, we couldn't get close to this, the best we saw from the drive was 317,299 IOPS (1,299.66MB/s) at QD16. From QD8 until the end of the test at QD32 the write performance plateau's off.
4K Random Write v QD performance compared.
The CRAS C910 sits in a mid-table position at QD1 and moves up the table in QD2 but from QD4 onwards it slowly drops down the table.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8’s custom settings to test the 4K 70/30 mixed read/write performance of the drive through a range of queue depths using a single thread and four threads.
In our 4K 70/30 tests using a single thread, the 2TB CRAS C910 produced results from 21,195 IOPS (86.81MB/s) at QD1 up to 117,747 IOPS (482.289MB/s) at QD32. However, from QD8 the performance began to plateau.
Switching up to four threads the performance climbs steadily from 81,599 IOPS (334.232MB/s) at QD1 up to 346,012 IOPS (1,417MB/s) at QD32.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8 to test the random performance of the drive at lower queue depths (QD1 – QD8 where most of the everyday workloads occur) using 1 to 4 threads.
Random Reads
In the QD1-QD8 random read tests the CRAS C910 produced smooth increases in performance as the queue depth deepened without any noticeable dramas. At QD1 the drive speed ranges from 18,102 IOPS (74.14MB/s) using a single thread up to 71,941 IOPS (294.67MB/s) using four threads. At the end of the test run at QD8, the single-threaded performance had risen to 123,031 IOPS (503.93MB/s) while the four-threaded performance rose to 364,715 IOPS (1,403.87MB/s).
Random Writes
In the 4K write tests, the performance rose quickly from QD1 to QD2 for all four tested threads with the fastest rise seen in the three and four-threaded tests. The single and two thread performance plateaued out after QD2 while the other two threaded tests saw the performance start to level off at QD4.
In our read-throughput test, the 2TB CRAS C910 peaked at 4,022.52MB/s at the 16MB block mark which is 1,178MB/s short of the official maximum of 5,200MB/s.
That test result of 4,022.32MB/s sees the drive third from the bottom of our results chart.
In contrast to the read throughput test, the write test saw the drive produce a result figure of 4,806MB/s, bang on the official figure.
With a test result of 4,806MB/s, the 2TB CRAS C910 sits in the bottom half of the table.
The PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to fully test the performance of the fastest modern drives. The benchmark is designed to measure the performance of fast system drives using the SATA bus at the low end and devices connected via PCI Express at the high end.
The goal of the benchmark is to show meaningful real-world performance differences between fast storage technologies such as SATA, NVMe, and Intel’s Optane. The Full System Drive Benchmark uses 23 traces, running 3 passes with each trace. It typically takes an hour to run.
Traces used:
Booting Windows 10.
Adobe Acrobat – starting the application until usable.
Adobe Illustrator – starting the application until usable Adobe Premiere Pro – starting the application until usable.
Adobe Photoshop – starting the application until usable.
Battlefield V – starting the game until the main menu.
Call of Duty Black Ops 4 – starting the game until the main menu.
Overwatch – starting the game until main menu.
Using Adobe After Effects.
Using Microsoft Excel.
Using Adobe Illustrator.
Using Adobe InDesign.
Using Microsoft PowerPoint.
Using Adobe Photoshop (heavy use).
Using Adobe Photoshop (light use).
cp1 Copying 4 ISO image files, 20 GB in total, from a secondary drive to the target drive (write test).
cp2 Making a copy of the ISO files (read-write test).
cp3 Copying the ISO to a secondary drive (read test).
cps1Copying 339 JPEG files, 2.37 GB in total, to the target drive (write test).
cps2 Making a copy of the JPEG files (read-write test).
cps3 Copying the JPEG files to another drive (read test).
Klevv's 2TB CRAS C910 doesn't set the world on fire with its performance in PCMark10's Full System Drive Benchmark but at least it completes it without any problems. The six Adobe startup traces produced an average of 180MB/s with the fastest being the Adobe Acrobat startup trace at 218MB/s with the Lightroom trace the slowest at 125MB/s. For the five usage traces, the fastest was, as usual, the Photoshop heavy usage trace at 842MB/s, and including this result, the drive averaged 360MB/s for the five traces.
The three gaming traces produced an average result of 473MB/s, the fastest being Battlefield V at 552MB/s. Next came Call Of Duty Black Ops 4 at 587MB/s followed by Overwatch at 280MB/s.
When it came to the file transfers, the fastest was the cp1 Write test at 3,648MB/s with the drive averaging 1,654MB/s for the six file transfer tests.
With an overall bandwidth figure of 350.23MB/s, the 2TB Klevv CRAS C910 occupies the last spot on the results chart.
The 3DMark Storage Benchmark uses traces recorded from popular games and gaming-related activities to measure real-world gaming performance.
Traces used –
Battlefield V
Loading Battlefield™ V from launch to the main menu.
Call of Duty Black Ops 4
Loading Call of Duty®: Black Ops 4 from launch to the main menu.
Overwatch
Loading Overwatch® from launch to the main menu.
Game Move
Copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike®: Global Offensive from an external SSD to the system drive.
Game Recording
Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch®.
Installing Game
Installing The Outer Worlds® from the Epic Games Launcher.
Game Saving
Saving progress in The Outer Worlds game.
Battlefield V
The Klevv CRAS C910 Plus test result of 654.86MB/s sees it in the penultimate spot on the results chart just above Patriot's Viper VP4300.
Call of Duty Black Ops 4
The drive handled the Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 test a little better than the Battlefield V one as it moves up a place to site above the Patriot Viper VP4300 and the HP FX900 Pro although its average access time was higher than the HP drive.
Overwatch
The Overwatch game loading test finds the drive in the same spot on the table as the Battlefield V result.
Game Move
In the game moving test the Klevv CRAS C910 sits in third from last sport with a bandwidth figure of 2,476.7MB/s.
Game Recording
In the Game Recording test, the Klevv drive props up the table just behind Corsair's MP600 PRO.
Installing Game
The Game Installation test once again sees the drive in last place in the results table, not far behind the MP600 PRO from Corsair.
Game Saving
In the Game Move test, only the Solidigm P41 Plus and the Patriot Viper VP4300 are slower than the Klevv drive.
Overall Access Time
Overall Bandwidth
The drive finishes the test run with an overall bandwidth of 452.07MB/s only good enough for the penultimate spot on the results chart.
The Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Official Benchmark uses actual maps and playable characters to assign a score to your PC and rate its performance including scene loading times.
The benchmark gives an overall load time as well as loading times by scene.
Klevv's 2TB CRAS C910 SSD doesn't appear to handle the Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Official Benchmark particularly well, ending the test in just third from last place in the Total Loading Time chart. Having said the drive is faster in Scene's 4 and 5 than the CRAS C925.
We took note of the drive’s temperature during some of our benchmarking runs.
Klevv's CRAS C910 comes with an optional stick-on full-width aluminium heatsink, using this in conjunction with enhanced thermal management (thermal throttling) to keep the drive thermally stable. We did all of our testing with this heatsink in place. The hottest the drive got during our testing runs was 62° C during CrystalDiskMark 8's Sequential Write tests. It averaged 54° C for the bulk of the testing with the 4K tests averaging 49° C.
To test real life performance of a drive we use a mix of folder/file types and by using the FastCopy utility (which gives a time as well as MB/s result) we record the performance of drive reading from & writing to a 256GB Samsung SSD850 PRO.
To get a measure of how much faster PCIe NVMe drives are than standard SATA SSD's we use the same files but transfer to and from a 2TB Kioxia Exceria Plus drive.
Transfer Details
- Windows 10 backup – 118GB.
- Data file – 100GB.
- BluRay Movie – 42GB.
- Windows 11 iso – 5.4GB.
- File folder – 50GB – 28,523 files.
- Steam folder – 222GB (8 games: Alien Isolation, Battlefield 4, BioShock Infinite, Crysis 3, Grand Theft Auto V, Shadow Of Mordor, Skyrim, The Witcher3 Wild Hunt).
- Movie demos 8K – 21GB – (11 demos).
- Raw Movie Clips 4K – 16GB – (9 MP4V files).
- Movie folder – 12GB – 15 files – (8 @ .MKV, 4 @ .MOV, 3 @ MP4).
- Photo Folder – 10GB – 304 files – (171 @ .RAW, 105 @ JPG, 21 @ .CR2, 5 @ .DNG).
- Audio Folder – 10GB – 1,483 files – (1479 @ MP3, 4 @ .FLAC files).
- Single large image – 5GB – 1.5bn pixel photo.
- 3D Printer File Folder – 4.25GB – (166 files – 105 @ .STL, 38 @ .FBX, 11 @ .blend, 5 @ .lwo, 4 @ .OBJ, 3@ .3ds).
- AutoCAD File Folder – 1.5GB (80 files – 60 @ .DWG and 20 @.DXF).
The 2TB CRAS C910 averaged 684.92MB/s when writing the contents of the 14 real-life transfer tests with the fastest being the 2,149MB/s (8 secs) for the 4K Movie Clip folder and the slowest the 201MB/s (268 secs) for the 50GB File folder transfer.
Reading the data back the drive averaged 2,138MB/s with the fastest performance came with the 8K folder transfer at 3,009MB/s (7 secs) with the 50GB file transfer again the slowest, this time at 605MB/s (89 secs).
Klevv's CRAS C910 Gen 4 SSD is aimed at the mainstream end of the market coming in four capacities; 500GB, 1TB, 2TB and a flagship 4TB model.
At the heart of the CRAS C910 is a controller we've not seen before, from Realtek, but the drive has also been seen using a more familiar controller from InnoGrit, the IG5220. Realtek's RTS5772DL is a PCIe 4 x4 eight-channel IC which is a DRAM-less design (relying on HMB technology to use system memory for caching duties rather than a dedicated DRAM chip). The controller has an interface speed of up to 1600MT/s which translates in Sequential performance speeds of up to 6GB/s, so it's not a very high-performance drive. For the CRAS C910 Klevv has combined the controller with two packages of Essencore branded (ENFFGP8NC9LR-HL) NAND but, we couldn't find any more information on it other than its 3D TLC NAND.
Klevv rates the maximum Sequential performance of the 2TB CRAS C910 under the maximum speed supported by the controller with reads at up to 5,200MB/s and writes at up to 4,800MB/s. Random 4K performance is quoted as up to 560,000 IOPS for reads and up to 615,000 IOPS for writes.
Using the ATTO benchmark we couldn't quite hit either Sequential maximums with test results of 4,660MB/s for reads and 4,6990MB/s for writes. Switching over to the CrystalDiskMark 8 we could confirm both Sequential figures with test results of 5,262MB/s for reads and 5,048MB/s for writes. Switching over to the compressible data test saw no real difference in the scores so it seems the Realtek controller doesn't have a preference when it comes to the type of data it's being asked to handle.
When it came to random performance we couldn't get close to the official figures with our 4-threaded tests. The peak read figure we achieved was 374,735 IOPS (QD16) with peak writes at 317,299 IOPS, also at QD16. However, switching over to the default Peak Performance Profile in CrystalDiskMark 8 we could confirm the official random read figure and indeed better it by quite a bit with a test result of 620,934 IOPS. Writes on the other hand were still short of the maximum at 612,804 IOPS.
To help keep the CRAS C910 cool, Klevv uses enhanced thermal management, including thermal throttling, and a DIY stick-on thin aluminium heatsink option that is bundled with the drive. The drive did get warm under heavy and prolonged benchmarking but we didn't see any sign of thermal throttling so we have no cause for complaint.
The Klevv CRAS C925 comes with a useful official license for Acronis True Image HD which is downloadable from the Klevv website.
We don't have a UK price or buy link, but the MRSP for the C910 2TB is $91.99. In the US, it is available from Amazon HERE.
Pros
- Reasonable performance.
- Endurance.
- Bundled aluminium heatsink.
Cons
- Write speeds in some benchmark tests.
- DRAM-less design.
- UK availability is scarce.
KitGuru says: Klevv's 2TB CRAS C910 isn't the fastest Gen4 drive we've seen by a long chalk but it has decent all-round performance. Unfortunately, the 2TB Gen4 drive market segment is a very crowded one, but Klevv has given it every chance with some competitive pricing – if you're in the US, at least!
