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 — 256 GB — a tiny waterproof flash drive that supports USB 3.1 — $46
- Samsung Portable T7 Solid State Drive — 500GB — a portable solid-state drive with USB 3.2 gen 2 — $100
- Samsung Duo Plus — 256GB — a USB 3.1 flash drive that supports both USB-A and USB-C — $55
- Western Digital Element Hard Drive — 10 TB — a full-sized hard drive that supports USB 3.0 – $190
- Western Digital MyPassport Portable Hard Drive — 4 TB — an inexpensive desktop hard drive that supports USB 3.0– $95
- TEKQ Thunderbolt 3 External Portable SSD — 1 TB — $209
- Plugable Thunderbolt 3 External SSD NVMe Drive — 512 GB — a solid state drive that supports Thunderbolt 3 — 2400+ MB/sec read and up to 1800+ MB/sec — $249
Or if you prefer a slightly larger sample size: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q1-2020/