KLEVV CRAS C925 1 TB Gen4 SSD Review

While PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs are setting new storage performance benchmarks, the real-life and application benefits of getting those drives are still not worth the price you are paying for them. It's mostly an early adopters product for now and while we appreciate the speed-up, we would love to see the performance transition from synthetic benchmarks to actual use cases.

And you know what's still considered to be quite fast without breaking your wallet? The current-gen PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs. Gen 4 SSDs are now available at very affordable price rates and offer great performance which is why KLEVV has now launched its new CRAS C925 series which are designed & build for mainstream audiences and positioned between the C910 and C930 series which we have tested in the past.

Today, I will be testing the KLEVV CRAS C925 1 TB SSD. The drive features a Gen 4.0 protocol which means that it is future-proof and retails for $66.99 US.

The KLEVV CRAS C925 SSD is part of the CRAS "C" series family which encompasses a lot of price tiers. The Crucial T500 Gen4 SSDs are based on the NVMe SSD form factor and feature the latest 3D TLC NAND flash which offers larger capacities of up to 4 TB, & twice the performance of Gen3 drive.

As for the specs, the KLEVV CRAS C925 NVMe SSDs will come with the standard NVMe 2.0 PCIe Gen 5 x4 interface in the M.2 2280 form factor. It will feature 500 GB, 1 TB, and up to 2 TB capacities with a rated speed of up to 7.4 GB/s (Sequential Read) and 6.5 GB/s (Sequential Write). The Maxio Tech "MAP1602" SSD controller is designed to offer a cost-effective yet high-performance DRAM-less solution. Some of the main features of the C925 series include:

Note - The 1 TB model that we tested had a peak sequential read speed of 7,400 & a write speed of 6,300 MB/s. The Random Reads and Writes IOPS were rated at 670K/980K IOPS & endurance was rated at 1200 TBW.

The SSD comes in a heatsink-less design but there is a small aluminum heat pad that you can easily place over the SSD for some extra cooling.

The KLEVV CRAS C925 SSDs come in a small package. The package is colored gray/white and features a large picture of the SSD featured on it. The front also lists down some features such as capacities, maximum read speeds, PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 form factor, and the 5-year limited warranty.

The KLEVV CRAS SSD series box includes a warranty booklet and the SSD itself. All drives are held within a plastic shell container.

Out of the package, all KLEVV CRAS SSDs come in the standard M.2 2280 form factor and feature a black PCB which is great since some mainstream drives come with blue-colored PCBs.

All of the NAND Flash chips along with the MaxoTech controller are situated on the front. Being a single-sided design means that the SSD will run a bit cooler since users don't have to worry about heat from any components on the other side.

The drive we received was a non-heatsink variant and you shouldn't worry much about heat since this is a mainstream product that won't get too hot or throttle that much. The aluminum heat pad should provide decent cooling. The front features two ESSENCORE "ENFFGP8NC4GR-HR" 3D NAND Flash modules and the MaxioTech "MAP1602A-F3C" controller. There are two DRAM slots left over for the 2 TB variant.

Our test platform for this review consisted of an Intel Core i9-13900K processor which ran at stock clocks on the MSI Z790 ACE motherboard. The platform was coupled with 32 GB of DDR5 memory from G.Skill (Trident Z5/ 16 GB x 2) and the MSI MEG Ai1300P PSU. For graphics, I used the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X. This rounds up as a high-end platform for tests with modern-day SSDs. The MSI Z790 ACE specifically houses a single Gen 5.0 x4 NVMe slot that sources its lanes from the Raptor Lake CPU.

First up, we have the official performance stats for these drives as listed by their manufacturers. You can compare these stats with the rest of the drives I tested in the following chart:

AS SSD Benchmark download is a Windows 10 utility software program that tests the performance of solid-state drives. With its help, you can find out the speed of all installed SSDs and take care of any issues that the tests may reveal. The free app performs three separate tests to provide you with conclusive evidence of your driver's general behavior while it copies, reads, and writes data. The app determines the access time of an SSD, along with its speed and performance capabilities

As the industry’s leading provider of high-performance storage & network connectivity products, ATTO has created a widely-accepted Disk Benchmark freeware software to help measure storage system performance. As one of the top tools utilized in the industry, Disk Benchmark identifies performance in hard drives, solid-state drives, RAID arrays as well as the host connection to attached storage. Top drive manufacturers, like Hitachi, build and test every drive using the ATTO Disk Benchmark.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturer's RAID controllers, storage controllers, host bus adapters (HBAs), hard drives, and SSD drives, and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

CrystalDiskMark is a disk benchmark software. It measures sequential reads/writes speed, random 512KB, 4KB, 4KB (Queue Depth=32) reads/writes speed, selects test data (Random, 0Fill, 1Fill),

To test the maximum average transfer speeds of the drives, I used a 100 GB file to test the limits.

The PCMark 10 Storage benchmark is designed to test the performance of SSDs, HDDs, and hybrid drives with traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, and a selection of popular games. You can test the system drive or any other recognized storage device, including local external drives. Unlike synthetic storage tests, the PCMark 10 Storage benchmark highlights real-world performance differences between storage devices.

KLEVV's CRAS SSDs with the Maxio Gen4 controller have long been awaited and it looks like they are finally here, offering great performance in a DRAM-less package. The new controller offers an efficient, low-power, and low-temp design which makes the 1 TB model ideal for mainstream PC audiences.

As for the pricing, the KLEVV CRAS C925 1 TB model should be available for $66.99 which is great value considering the performance. The 500 GB model is already listed for $46.99 US while the 2 TB model goes for $108 US. As such, we can fully recommend the C925 series to PC builders who are looking for good storage value.