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The latest SSD to join Klevv's “C” stable of Gen4 drives is the CRAS C925, designed as an upgrade for laptops, Mini PCs and PS5. We put the 2TB version through its paces, priced at $108 in the States, with UK pricing still to be confirmed.
The M.2 2280 CRAS C925 combines a Maxio MAP1602 4-channel DRAM-less controller and 238-Layer 3D TLC NAND. Available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB (the drive we are looking at here) capacities the drive comes as a bare drive with a separate stick-on aluminium heatsink.
Officially the 2TB CRAS C925 is rated as up to 7,400MB/s and 6,500MB/s for Sequential reads and writes respectively. The 500GB and 1TB drives have the same read rating but with 6,200MB/s and 6,300MB/s respectively write ratings.
The random 4K read performance for the range is quoted up to 670,000 IOPS for the 500GB and 1TB drives with the 2TB drive rated at up to 700,000 IOPS. As for random writes, the 500GB and 1TB drives are rated as up to 980,000 IOPS with the 2TB drive getting a 1M IOPS figure.
The endurance for the 2TB CRAS C925 is 2400TBW, the 1TB drive gets 1200TBW and the 500GB drive 600TBW.
Klevv backs the CRAS C925 with a 5-year warranty.
Physical Specifications:
- Usable Capacities: 2TB.
- NAND Components: 238-Layer 3D TLC,
- NAND Controller: Maxio MAP1602.
- Cache: None, DRAM-less (HMB).
- Interface: PCIe Gen 4 x4, NVMe 1.4.
- Form Factor: M.2,2280.
- Dimensions: 80 x 22 x 2.15 mm (without heatsink), 80 x 22 x 3.40mm (with heatsink).
- Drive Weight: 7g (without heatsink), 10g (with heatsink).
Firmware Version: SVN24095
The Klevv CRAS C925 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 which holds the drive's capacity (2TB) and maximum Sequential read speed (7,400MB/s). Under this we find two more icons for the attachable heatsink and the fact that the drive works with PS5. 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 multi-lingual statement about transmission speed, stable performance and what the drive is good for. 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 the CRAS C925 and the stick-on full-width aluminium heatsink
The 2TB CRAS C925 is built on a single-sided M.2 2280 format.
The 2TB CRAS C925 uses a Maxio MAP1602 4-channel controller. A DRAM-less design, the MAP1602 has a very small footprint with just a 7.1mm x 11mm package. Built on a 12nm TSMC process with ARM Cortex-R5 architecture, the MAP1602 supports up to 4TB of 2D MLC/TLC or 3D MLC/TLC/QLC with an interface speed of up to 2400MT/s which is faster than some of its DRAM-less competitors. Performance-wise the controller supports speeds of up to 7,400MB/s and 6,500MB/s for Sequential reads and writes respectively with a 1,000K IOPS maximum for both random reads and writes. MAXIO Agile ECC 3 Technology provides error correction and the drive also supports AES 256-bit encryption.
For the 2TB CRAS C925 Klevv has matched the controller with two packages of Essencore ENFGGP8NC4AR-HR (rebranded SK Hynix) 238-Layer 3D TLC NAND.
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 a 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
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
Solidigm P41 Plus 2TB
Seagate Lightsaber Collection Special Edition FireCuda 2TB
Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB
WD 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 C925 read score of 82.3MB/s in CrystalDiskMark 8's 4K QD1 test sees it in the middle of the pack sitting in between the Seagate FireCuda 530 and Corsair's MP600 PRO XT. Its write performance in this test is a little disappointing as both the previously mentioned drives have better write figures.
A glance at the benchmark result screens shows that using the default test the drive came up a little short of the official maximums of 7,400MB/s and 6,500MB/s for Sequential reads and writes respectively. Although switching over to the compressible data test we could confirm the official read figure but the write performance dropped some 400MB/s.
The CRAS C925 Sequential read test result of 7,347MB/s puts the drive into a lower mid position in the results chart.
Peak Performance Profile
The drive is officially rated at 700,000 IOPS for random reads and using the Peak Performance profile of CrystalDiskMark8 we got a nice increase on the official rating at 853,261 IOPS. However, it was a different story for the random write test, the best we saw was 607,320 IOPS, way off the official 1M IOPS figure.
As with the default test, we couldn't confirm the official maximums for Sequential performance for either reads or writes.
Real World Profile
In the Real World profiles test the drive's Sequential read result of 4,544MB/s sees it slip into the top ten in the results chart. Its write performance however is somewhat stronger at 5,406.28MB/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 manufacturer's 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 the official 7,400MB/s and 6,500MB/s for Sequential reads and writes respectively, with reads at 6,820MB/s and writes at 5,780MB/s, results which see the drive in the bottom half of the results chart.
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 C925 read score of 2950 is good enough to slip the drive into the top 10 of our 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 both the read and write tests. The read figure of 7,252MB/s is 148MB shy of the official 7,400MB/s with the writes just 65MB/s shy of the official 6,500MB/s at 6,435MB/s.
128KB Sequential Read.
At QD1, the 2TB CRAS C925 just makes it into the top ten of the Sequential read results table. At QDs 2 and 4 it makes slight progress up the charts but at QD32 it drops to a mid-table position.
128KB Sequential Write.
When it came to the Sequential write test, the drive's worst performance compared to the drives around it was surprisingly at QD1. As the queue depth deepened the performance improved and the drive started to climb up the table with the best performance at QD2.
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 C925 is rated as up to 700,000 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 438,191 IOPS at QD16.
4K Random Read v QD Performance Compared
Although we couldn't get close to the official 4K random read figure, it is a consistent drive, as the test results we did get saw the drive in the top ten results for all the tested queue depths
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 C925 as up to 100,000,000 IOPS. With our four threaded tests, we couldn't get close to this, the best we saw from the drive was 337,936 IOPS (QD32).
4K Random Write v QD Performance Compared
The random write performance of the drive sees in the bottom third of the table at QD1, dropping down to the penultimate position at QD2 before staging a recovery at QD4, with the drive climbing up the chart to finally sit in a mid-table position at QD32.
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 C925 produced results from 22,344 IOPS (91.52MB/s) at QD1 up to 139,770 IOPS (572.49MB/s) at QD32. Switching up to four threads the performance goes from 87,287 IOPS (357.52MB/s) at QD1 up to 382,335 IOPS (1,566.04 MB/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 C925 produced smooth increases in performance as the queue depth deepened without any noticeable dramas. At QD1 the drive speed ranges from 20,202 IOPS (82.74MB/s) using a single thread up to 80,661 IOPS (330.38MB/s) using four threads. At the end of the test run at QD8, the single-threaded performance had risen to 133,880 IOPS (548.37MB/s) while the four-threaded performance rose to 399,754 IOPS (1,637.39MB/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 thread performance plateaued out after QD2 while all the other threaded tests saw the performance increase with queue depth.
In our read-throughput test, the 2TB CRAS C925 peaked at 5,740.49MB/s at the 8MB block mark so way short of the official maximum of 7,400MB/s.
Even though the peak test result figure of 5,749MB/s is well short of the official maximum for the drive, that peak result is good enough to stick the drive into the fifth spot on the results chart.
In the write throughput tests, the drive peaked at the end of the test run (16MB block) at 5,748MB/s, 752MB/s short of the official maximum of 6,500MB/s.
With a test result of 5,748MB/s, the 2TB CRAS C925 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 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 C925 handled the demands of the PCMark10 Full System Drive Benchmark pretty well. Tested with the six Adobe startup traces it produced an average of 253MB/s with the fastest being the Premiere Pro test trace at 313MB/s, with the Lightroom trace the slowest at 189MB/s.
As is normal with the usage traces it was the Photoshop heavy usage trace that produced the best result of 1,103MB/s, with the InDesign trace being the slowest at 222MB/s. For the five usage traces the drive averaged 475MB/s.
The three gaming traces produced an average result of 706MB/s, the fastest being Battlefield V at 919MB/s. Next came Call Of Duty Black Ops 4 at 757MB/s followed by Overwatch at 443MB/s,
When it came to the file transfers, the fastest was the cp1 Write test at 3,720MB/s with the drive averaging 2,062MB/s for the six file transfer tests.
With an overall bandwidth figure of 498.02MB/s, the 2TB Klevv CRAS C925 sits in a mid-table position just behind Kingston's KC3000 drive.
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.
In 3DMark’s Storage Test, the 2TB CRAS C925 had an average game loading bandwidth figure for the three games of 772.29MB/s with an average access time figure of 67µs (0.067m/s).
In the game moving, recording, installing and saving test traces the drive averaged 871.11MB/s with an average access time of 52µs (0.052m/s) for the four tests.
The average bandwidth figure for the 2TB CRAS C925 for the complete benchmark run was 568.91MB/s, a result which sees the drive in the bottom half of the results table.
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 C925 SSD doesn't appear to handle the Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Official Benchmark particularly well. It doesn't appear in the top ten for any of the scene loads and it gets as low as the penultimate drive in one scene load – Scene 4.
Klevv's CRAS C925 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 although we did do some testing with the bare drive sitting under one of the motherboard M.2 thermal plates.
The hottest the drive got during our testing runs was 63° C during CrystalDiskMark 8's default Write tests. It averaged 57° C for the bulk of the testing with the 4K tests averaging 53° C. For the bulk of the 4K testing, the drive was consistent in its thermal performance.
Without the aluminium heatsink and just relying on the motherboard heatsink, running the same CrystalDiskMark 8 default Write test saw a maximum temperature of 62° C, just one degree cooler than with the heatsink on. Running the ATTO and AS SSD benchmarks saw the same one-degree difference between the heatsink being on or off.
To test the 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
100GB data file.
60GB iso image.
60GB Steam folder – 29,521 files.
50GB File folder – 28,523 files.
12GB Movie folder – (15 files – 8 @ .MKV, 4 @ .MOV, 3 @ MP4).
10GB Photo folder – (304 files – 171 @ .RAW, 105 @ JPG, 21 @ .CR2, 5 @ .DNG).
10GB Audio folder – (1,483 files – 1479 @ MP3, 4 @ .FLAC files).
5GB (1.5bn pixel) photo.
BluRay Movie – 42GB.
21GB 8K Movie demos – (11 demos)
16GB 4K Raw Movie Clips – (9 MP4V files).
4.25GB 3D Printer File Folder – (166 files – 105 @ .STL, 38 @ .FBX, 11 @ .blend, 5 @ .lwo, 4 @ .OBJ, 3@ .3ds).
1.5GB AutoCAD File Folder (80 files – 60 @ .DWG and 20 @.DXF).
The CRAS C925 averaged 1,291.21MB/s when writing the contents of the 14 real-life transfer tests with the fastest being the 2,993MB/s (6 secs) for the 4K Movie Clip folder and the slowest the 296MB/s (182 secs) for the 50GB File folder transfer. Reading the data back the fastest performance came with the 10GB Photo folder transfer at 3,008MB/s (4 secs) with the 50GB file transfer again the slowest, this time at 642MB/s (86 secs).
Perhaps better known for its large range of memory modules, Klevv also has an impressive range of SSDs covering 2.5in SATA, Gen4 and Gen5 M.2 formats. The latest drive to be added to the ‘C' range of Gen4 SSDs is the CRAS C925, available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities.
A Maxiotech MAP1602A 4-channel controller sits at the heart of the CRAS C925. A DRAM-less design, the MAP1602A uses Host Memory Buffer (HMB) 3.0 technology, which uses system memory instead of a dedicated cache chip and uses Dynamic SLC cache writing technology. Built on a 12nm process, the MAP1602A uses ARM Cortex-R5 architecture with a fast 2400 MT/s flash interface which helps performance.
The controller supports Sequential performance speeds of up to 7,400MB/s and up to 6,500MB/s for reads and writes respectively. Random 4K performance is rated as up to 1,000,000 IOPS for both reads and writes. For the 2TB version of the CRAS C925, Klevv has paired the MAP1602A with two 1TB packages of 238-Layer 3D TLC NAND.
Klevv rates the performance of the 2TB CRAS C925 as per the maximum speeds supported by the MAP1602A – up to 7,400MB/s and 6,500MB/s for Sequential reads and writes respectively and 1M IOPS for random writes although random reads for the drive are rated down a bit at up to 7,000 IOPS.
Using the default CrystalDiskMark 8 tests we couldn't quite hit the official maximums for Sequential performance, the best we saw was 7,347MB/s for reads and 6,462MB/s for writes. Switching over to the compressible data test we could confirm the official read figure with a test result of 7,438.81MB/s but the write performance at 6,024.12MB/s dropped back even further from the official figure.
When it came to random performance we couldn't get close to the official figures with our 4-threaded tests. The best random read figure we saw was 438,191 IOPS at QD16. Writes were even further away from the official figure at 337,936 IOPS (QD32). 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 a decent margin with a test result of 853,261 IOPS. We still couldn't confirm the random writes but got a good deal closer to it at 607,320 IOPS.
To help keep the CRAS C925 cool Klevv uses a combination of enhanced thermal management, including thermal throttling and a thin aluminium heatsink. The interesting bit is that this comes as a DIY stick-on option. The drive did get slightly warm under heavy and prolonged benchmarking but we didn't see any sign of thermal throttling so have no cause for complaint.
The Klevv CRAS C925 comes with an 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 C925 2TB is listed on Amazon for $108 HERE.
Pros
- Overall performance.
- Endurance.
- Bundled aluminium heatsink.
Cons
- Write speeds in some benchmark tests.
- DRAM-less design.
- Model line-up stops at 2TB.
KitGuru says: Klevv's CRAS C925 offers decent all-round performance and, for everyday use, the bundled aluminium heatsink works fine although you may want to ramp up to a 3rd party cooler for sustained heavy load work.
