Generally, I’ve found that Samsung makes the most reliable Solid State Drives (SSD) — and Western Digital makes the most reliable Hard Disk Drives (HDD).
These are my current recommendations:
- Samsung FIT Flash Drive — a tiny waterproof flash drive that supports USB 3.1 — 256 GB — $46
- Samsung Portable T7 Solid State Drive — a portable solid state drive that supports USB 3.2 gen 2 — 500GB — $100
- Samsung Duo Plus — a USB 3.1 flash drive that supports both USB-A and USB-C — 256GB — $55
- Western Digital Element Hard Drive — a full-sized hard drive that supports USB 3.0 with 10 TB space – $190
- Western Digital MyPassport Portable Hard Drive — an inexpensive desktop hard drive that supports USB 3.0 — 4 TB — $95
- Plugable Thunderbolt 3 External SSD NVMe Drive — a solid state drive that supports Thunderbolt 3 — 2400+ MB/sec read and up to 1800+ MB/sec —- 500 GB — $200
Or if you prefer a slightly larger sample size: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q1-2020/