I have a KLEVV CRAS C710 NVMe SSD, which is a budget DRAM-less drive. After upgrading to a 500 Mbps internet connection, game downloads complete much faster, but Steam frequently drops to 0 B/s while the drive shows 100% usage. I suspect Steam is downloading, decompressing, and installing files simultaneously. CrystalDiskInfo also showed the SSD reaching about 90°C, so I added a heatsink and reduced the peak temperature to around 65°C. However, the drive can still report 100% activity even when read/write speeds are only around 10 MB/s. Is this expected behavior for this type of SSD, or could the drive be failing?
4 Answers
A 500 Mbps connection is only about 62.5 MB/s in ideal conditions, so the advertised sequential write speed of the SSD is not the relevant comparison. Game installation involves random writes, file rewriting, decompression, and sometimes reading and writing on the same drive. Those operations can make a low-end NVMe appear to be at 100% activity even while the displayed throughput is low. Leave some free space—ideally at least 10–15%—and test whether smaller downloads behave better.
The 90°C reading was definitely too high and could cause thermal throttling. Keeping it around 65°C with a properly installed heatsink is much more reasonable. Check the SSD's SMART data, firmware, and health percentage, and back up anything important. If it reports rapidly increasing errors, critical warnings, or abnormal health loss, replace it; otherwise, the behavior alone does not prove that the drive is dying.
100% disk usage means the drive is fully occupied with I/O or is taking a long time to complete requests; it does not necessarily mean the SSD is transferring data at its maximum advertised speed. Steam often downloads compressed data, decompresses it, and writes or patches many files at the same time. A DRAM-less budget drive can struggle with that workload, especially if it is fairly full or its SLC cache has been exhausted. The faster internet connection may simply be exposing the SSD as the new bottleneck.
It is worth checking for a firmware update and confirming that the SSD is installed in a slot with adequate cooling. If the drive is nearly full, performance can drop significantly, especially on a DRAM-less model. Using a different drive for game installation could confirm the diagnosis, but there is no need to avoid SSDs for games in general; hard drives are slower and can cause very long loading times in modern games.
CrystalDiskInfo reports the drive health at 96%, and it is already about three years old. I will back up anything important and keep an eye on the SMART values.