KLEVV CRAS C910 LITE 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe 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 decided to go the value route with its CRAS C910 LITE SSDs. These are purely a mainstream-focused product so let’s see what they have to offer in terms of storage & overall performance.

Today, I will be testing the KLEVV CRAS C910 LITE 2 TB SSD. The drive features a Gen 4.0 protocol which means that it is future-proof and offers some really nice value with the model retailing at $79.99 US.

KLEVV CRAS 910 LITE 2 TB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD

The KLEVV CRAS 910 LITE SSD is part of the KLEVV CRAS family. The KLEVV CRAS C910 LITE SSDs are based on the NVMe SSD form factor and feature TLC-based 3D NAND flash which offers larger capacities of up to 4TB, better performance, and slightly lower power input. The CRAS C910 LITE SSDs are also based on the high-end Phison PS5021-E21T controller which is aimed at entry-level PCIe 4.0 SSDs and significantly reduces the cost versus the E18 controller which is made for high-end designs and is based on a 12nm process technology.

FEATURES

In terms of performance, KLEVV CRAS C910 LITE 2 TB has sequential read speeds of up to 5000 MB/s and write speeds of 74200 MB/s. The Random read speeds of these drives are up to 680K IOPS and the write is 880K IOPS. The Phison E18T controller has an idle power draw of 2.7mW and you are looking at a DRAM-less design. The endurance of the lineup is rated at 640 TBW and comes with a 5-year limited warranty.

KLEVV CRAS C910 LITE SSD Lineup Specifications:

KLEVV CRAS 910 LITE 2 TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD  – Unboxing and Closer Look

The KLEVV CRAS C910 LITE SSDs come in a small package. The package is colored blue/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 warranty.

The back of the package lists some specifications of the SSD and some performance figures which we will get to in a bit.

The KLEVV CRAS C910 LITE SSD package includes a warranty booklet and that’s about it.

The front of the SSD includes a specifications sticker. This is the standard NVMe 1.4 standard and the CRAS C910 LITE measures 80 x 22 x 2.15mm (LxWxH) while weighing in at just 7 grams.

All of the NAND Flash chips along with the Phison E21T 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. It is still advisable to put it under a heatsink for the calmness of one’s mind.

Test Setup

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.

Wccftech SSD Test Setup 2023

KLEVV CRAS 910 LITE 2 TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD Performance Benchmarks

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

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

ATTO 3.05 Disk Benchmark

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.

Crystal Disk Mark 7.0.0 x64

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),

File Transfer Speeds (100 GB File Size)

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

PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

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.

Forspoken DirectStorage Benchmark

Conclusion – Built For Enthusiasts

Looking at the benchmarks, we are looking at a familiar story that we have seen with other Gen 4 SSDs in the mainstream segment. Once again, the performance is decent & the drive works great throughout the tests that we conducted.

The single most interesting aspect about this SSD is its price which at $79.99 US is the cheapest you can find right now. That’s a bargain when you consider that the 1 TB variant goes for $49.99 US. One can hope to find the 4 TB variant around the $110-$130 US range and that would be an even more insane deal. The KLEVV CRAS C910 LITE series makes them a perfect storage component for your budget builds with a price that is awesome and unbeatable.