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> Also, what could one do in advance to know if they're about to purchase such an SSD? You mentioned one affected model.

Typically QLC is significantly worse at this than TLC, since the "real" write speed is very low. In my experience any QLC is very susceptible to long pauses in write heavy scenarios.

It does depend on controller though. As an example, check out the sustained write benchmark graph here[1], you can see that a number of models starts this oscillating pattern after exhausting the pseudo-SLC buffer, indicating the controller is taking a time-out to rearrange things in the background. Others do it too but more irregularly.

> You mentioned DRAMless too, but do consumer SSD spec sheets generally say how much DRAM (if any) the devices have?

I rely on TechPowerUp, as an example compare the Samsung 970 Evo[2] to 990 Evo[3] under DRAM cache section.

[1]: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/samsung-990-... (second image in IOMeter graph)

[2]: https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-specs/samsung-970-evo-1-tb.d...

[3]: https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-specs/samsung-990-evo-plus-1...

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