The single biggest factor in SSD performance is the presence and quantity of DRAM cache. A drive with a GB or two of DRAM will write at several hundred MB/s all day long, while a DRAM-less drive will slow to a crawl after the first couple GB written.
This being the case, why does nobody list this spec? Neither amazon nor newegg have cache as a filterable item. 95% of drives don’t even mention it one way or the other in the product description. It’s fucking maddening.
Are there any web shops that will let me search for drives with DRAM cache specifically, or am I going to have to resort to googling full reviews of each model individually?
Look, The spreadsheet is not a silver bullet ! It can help you get some crucial info about the drives which you don’t get on the box or online listings like use of DRAM/HBM and the underlying NAND (TLC/QLC) used to store actual data.
Companies swap components so often that no one can keep all the records as you have to actually buy drives regularly to cross verify them which is just not feasible.
Sometimes it’s a good thing like denser NAND (176L > 64L) could offer larger capacity drives. Other times it’s a cash grab when they swap out a 8-ch controller for a 4-ch one after the initial few batches while charging the same price.
I also said to have a look at r/newmaxx because you will find review links posted there of various drives from other publications like Tom’s hardware, Anandtech, Techpowerup, etc.
PS : Don’t trust one source, have a look at multiple reviews and listen to other’s commentary then form your own opinion.